The wagonauts abroad : two tours in the wild mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, made by three kegs, four wagonauts and a canteen, in two parts

_XTC

THE WflGONflUTS ABROAD.

TWO TOURS IN THE WILD MOUNTAINS OF TENNESSEE AND NORTH CAROLINA,
MADE BY THREE KEGS, FOUR WAGONAUTS, AND A CANTEEN.

IN TWO PARTS.

BY A. T. RAMP.

EDITED BYH.M. DOAK, FROM THE JOURNAL OF THE WAOONA UTS

" Full of brownies and bogles is this bnke."

I TV-

Nashville, Tenn.:
h (\ Southwestern Publishing House.

1892.

v^

TIE NiW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRAaY

31V391B

ACWR. LENOX AND

T.LDEN FOUNDATIONS

R 1945 L

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1892,
By H. M. DOAK,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PRESS OP
BARBEK & SMITH, AGENTS.
PUBLlSHTNf! HOUSE OP THE M. E. CHURCH, SOSTTH-
NASHVILLK, TKN'N.

DEDICATION.

Kespectfully and Fervently Dedicated to Every

i
tra veller 1

Who's a " Hell-ov-a-Tollar " Wherewith to Buy It.

By the Author, A. T. Eamp.

Some books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies ivere never penned ;
E 'en ministers, they hae been kenned,

In holy rapture,
A rousin' whid, at times, to vend,

An' naiVt wi' Scripture:
But this that I'm a gaun to tell 's
As true as that the deil 's in hell,

Or Nashville city ;
That e 'er he nearer comes oursel '

'Sae muckle pity.

(3)

INTRODUCTION.

" Truth is mighty and will prevail^

This is a veritable chronicle of two genuine tours
in the picturesque regions of mountainous North
Carolina. The incidents, scenes, and descriptions
are faithful and true, except where — for the benefit
of the believe-alls and the doubt-alls — a note points
out invention or exaggeration. The incidents are all
veritable, although sometimes touched up and colored.
The dramatis personw is appended.

H. M. DoAK.
(5)

CONTEJ^TS.

A thing of shreds and patches. (" Mikado.")

Page

Minutes of the First Meeting of the Wago-
NAUTS — The Aliases Chosen 17

Minutes of the Last Meeting of the Wago-
NAUTS — Veracious Chronicle 23

Paet I.
Dramatis Person^e 29

CHAPTER I.
The Start — An Ancient Town — "Nola Chnckee
Jack " — Bumpass Cove Furnace — The First
Abolition Editor — The Devil's Looking-glass —
Panier's First Poem — Luncheon — Ophidian
Burnt Offerings — Grand Scenery — Titanic Bat-
tlefields— At the foot of Great Bald— Bruius'
Thrilling Going to Bed — Asleep beneath Great
Bald 31

CHAPTER IT.
Brutus' Dreadful Awakening — Ascent of Great
Bald — Botany — Grand Dome — The Hermit of
Great Bald — His Ditch — Luncheon above the

Clouds 46

(7)

8 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

CHAPTER III.

Page

Soakes — Fish — A Mountaineer — A Mountain Ox
Big — Huckleberries on Big-Butt — A Noble
Trout Stream— Hell-Hollow Fork — Fly Fishing
— Accidents — Broken Bottle — Brutus' Crime
and Trial — Cooking Trout — -Finding Beauty
Bothersome — Panier's Adventure with Snakes
— Bardolph — Erwin, Supper and Rest 69

CHAPTER IV.
Unaka — Eeminiscence of Ye Ancient Times —
Platonic Admiration — Iron Mountain — The
Killing Brutus — Meeting a Drummer — Com-
merce—Big Eock Creek — A Mountain Mill —
Porte Crayon — Night — A Mountain Maiden —
Emma Jean — We Leave Emma Jean Milking
the Kine 84

CHAPTER V.
Ascent of the Roan— Fine Views — Arethusa — A
Steep Road — A Mountain Grass Farm — Din-
ing in the Clouds— Siesta in the Empyrean —
At the Summit — Parting with Our Driver — Rec-
ollections of the Roan — Unchangeable as
Ocean— The Brocken Spectre of the Roan-
Nature above the Clouds— Science — Botany —
Natural History— A Historical Reference 96

CHAPTER VI
The Home of the Clouds— Cloud and Light Ef-

co:n^ten^ts. 9

Page

fects — Sunrise Kock — Yalley and Mountain
Yiews — Big Black — Valley o£ East Tennessee
— Blue Bidge — Cumberland Mountains — Lion
Bluff — A Granite Sphinx of Nature's Carving
— Buskin and George Eliot — Fooling Brutus
into a Walk — Departure from Roan — A Tramp
of Twelve Miles — Up-anchor for Home — Lost
— Luncheon with Beauty — Three Toddies — An
Olympian Banquet — Culture and Elegance
Dwelling in the Seclusion of the Boan's Base
— Brutus' Wife — He Resents Reference to that
Lady of the Imagination — "Six Miles and the
Demijohn Dry" — Caught Bathing by Mountain
Nymphs — Escape — Panier's Ducking — Um-
brella on the Wrong Side — Roan Station — Sus-
pected of Jumping the Hotel — End of the first
Wagonautic Expedition 107

Pakt II.
Dramatis Persons 133

CHAPTER I.
Knoxville— Recollections of Revolution — Gay
Street in 1861-65— Provision against Copper-
heads— Our Party — Our Turn-out and Stores
— Lorenzo and Jim— Summer Diversions —
Going by "Nola Chuckee Jack's" Road— Night
with Wagnerian Symphonies — AVhippoorwill
and Bullfrog— I sing a " Caviare " from Trova-

10 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

Page
tore — Jim Lies Down — Musical Eesurrection —

Like Orpheus, I'm Followed by Jim — Fording

Big Pigeon in the Dark — Methodist Conference

— Pie for Supper — Chicken for Breakfast — Off

for Mt. Sterling— Up North Fork— Botany ... 135

CHAPTER II.

Corn Scarce — A Surly Native — Cosby Creek —
Retail Liquor Dealing for Corn — Barred by
the Statute of Limitations — Camped in a
Spruce Pine Grove — An Old Church — A Fec-
und Region — Nature's Music — A Wild Camp
Scene — A Laced Cup — Spoiling Good Coffee
and Liquor — A Supper for the Gods — Jove's
Envy— He Thunders at Mortal Bliss— The Can-
teen — I'm Drenched — Astronomical Views-
Job's Coffin over the Side of a Canteen —
"Bethankit" Hummed by Panier — Night
Views -Memories of Camp Life — An Alham-
bra View— Boabdil — A Mountain Character-
Thespian Exercises by Camp Fire — An Aston-
ished Native— Beds of Asphodel, Fern, and
Spruce Boughs — Dreams — Night Noises —
Taking the Road — Revolt — Mutiny — Six
Bells — Rue for Grog— Rebellion Crushed —
Blanc's Narrow Escape from Poisoning — My
Botany— "I Jist Dunno"— A Wild Region-
Resisting Toll — State Line — Blanc wants to
Speak — Suppressed — Ups and Downs 144

CONTENTS. 11

Page
CHAPTER III.

The Governor of North Carolina — Geology —
Dr. Safford — Value of Science — The Practical
class — Vicious Puns — Dr. Blanc's Great Work
for " Improved Punning" — Big Creek — Corn —
An Arkansas Traveller — A Native Matron —
A Coquettish Widow — ■'' Ristocrats "— Snake
Bites, Past and Future — A Pretty Maiden —
The " Missionary "—A Little Girl's First View
of a Real African— Poetry under Difficulties
— Finding a Rhyme — I Drop into Poetry — An
Ode to Big Creek — I'm the Poet of Big Creek
— Ascending Mt. Sterling — Pulling Jim Up
— Cloud Views — Silence of the Summit — Thun-
derstorms— The Peoples of the Tennessee aud
Carolina Slopes — Dialect — Chaucerian En-
glish, but No Dialect 160

CHAPTER IV.

A Good Man — Gathers Apples for His Mother-
in-Law — Lovely Streams — Pastures Green —
Lizard Spring — Luncheon — Cataloochie —
Trout Fishing — Blanc Goes Gunning and Kills
a Copperhead — Swollen Streams — End of
Fishing — AVe Move On — A Suspicious Native
— The Keg Clears His Intellect— A Patriot —
"Ef I Lived in Groun'hog Hole, I'd Fight fur
It"— A Tar Heel, Who' Been at the "Crater"

12 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

Page
—First Yiew of Quoi-Aliua-Catoosa— Grand

Moimtaiu Yiews— Yankee Canteen — War Ee

miniscences— A Bumper — " I Hain't Got Noth-

•ing to Take Back Nutlier" — A Confederate Ee-

union in the Mountains — Blauc Wants to

Speak — Blanc, Unsportsmanlike, Buys Trout

— Up Socoah— A Deacon— Trying to Invade a

Church — Invoking the Christian Spirit with a

Canteen — A Serpent — Blanc Ahead on Snakes

— His Facility in Seeing Snakes— A Lovely

Valley — The People— Log Cabins — Jabber-

wocks — Supper — Sleeping in a Church — Fleas

Engaged in Calisthenics Down Panier's Bony

Back 183

CHAPTER V.
Climbing to Socoah Gap — In Qualla — A Won-
derful Yalley — Woanded at Sunday Eoad-
working — Hauling Jim iip Socoah — Jim Horn-
blower — Buying Corn with the Aid of the Can-
teen— Testing Drowning Bear's Eeform — Ee
form Has Not Touched Jim Hornblower — Six
Bells — Promise of Corn — Mountain Poets-
Wordsworth — Byron — How to Yiew These
Wilds — Alone — The Lonely, Solemn Eaven —
Engagement to Meet Jim Hornblower at Home
— Lo's Portion — The Glorious Socoah Falls —
Indian Traditions — Jim Hornblower Not at
Home to Paleface — Indian Suspicion, Silence

CONTEXTS. 13

Pack

and Solitude — A Signal Goes Down the Valley
— Warned That We're Coming — Indian Agri-
culture— A Bashi-Bazouk — No Corn — Indians
Drink Our Whiskey, but No Corn — Resolution
upon Lo — Digging up the Hatchet — Risking
Blanc — Disguising our Blond Brave — Young-
Man- Afraid-His-Horse- Will-Die — Savage Bat-
tle — Picketus Af ricanus Scouting — ■ Blanc's
Polyglot Oath — Blanc Saved — Victory— Scalps
— Laden Wampum Belts — The Schnicker-
Schnee on duty — No Sunday Trout Fishing —
Eating the Trout We Didn't Catch — Donning
a Fiery Red Cravat, as a Lure for Indian
Maidens — Indian Divine Worship — Corn at
Last — Qualla Capital — Crossing Ocona-Luftee
— View of an Indian School — A Strange Re-
gion 198

CHAPTER VI.

Qualla— Scorning the Useful — Deportation of
Georgia Cherokees — Policy of North Carolina
Grants to Her Indians — Part Stay — Drowning
Bear's Reform — Its Lasting Effect — The Cher-
okees as Confederate Soldiers — Effect of the
War — Cherokees Are Citizens — United States
Guardianship — The School of the Friends —
Indian Government — Scarcity of Corn — Call-
ing on the Chief — A Very Intelligent Man —
A Confederate Colonel — The Walking Stick

14 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

Page

Brothers — 0-To-na-U-la-na-us-tee — Old In-
dian Comrades — Jake Doyle and "Staff" —
Jake's Mess — Loss of Tradition, Legend, and
Folk Lore — Flattering Lo — Cherokee Lan-.
guage — Lidian Names — Poverty of Their
Speech — Panier's Dreadful Dilemma — Impris-
oned with a Mountain Maiden — Narrow Escape
of Panier and the Keg — The Bunghole — Leav-
ing Qualla — Off for the Tuckeeseegee — What
We've Seen — Lo at Work — Monday Morning
— Bryson City — New Town — Stirring People
— Industries— Mineral Weath — Timber — Ho-
tels— Granites — Nantehala — Down the Little
Tennessee 222

CHAPTER VIL
No Corn — A Starving Country — Bushnell — Jim
— A Hospitable Bustic Family — Technically a
Deserter — A Man Who Was at Petersburg —
War Scenes— "I Come Home" — Sleeping in
Bed and Wishing I Hadn't — Willow Fountain
—A Tree That Meanly Yielded Water— Down
Tuckeeseegee — North Carolina Koads — The
Advanced Season Here — My Botany Still Ques-
tioned— Logging on the Little Tennessee —
Loch Katrine — A Lovely Sunlit View — Trying
to Describe a Scene for a Painter's Brush — A
Titan Battle Ground — Dissolving Views — A
God-forsaken Spot — A Hell's Half Acre —

CONTEXTS. 15

Page

Silence — Gathering Fear — A Nocturnal
Game of "Hearts" — Interrupted by a Ghost
— The Governor of North Carolina — Panier
Speaks to Him — Panier and Blanc Really
Accuse Me of Nightmare 243

CHAPTER YIIL
Leaving the Haunted House — Mile Posts — Indian
Sign Boards — Rocky Point — Clearing Out Saw
Logs — Meeting a Road-working Party — A Lazy
Lout, Shooting at a Mark, Scares Panier Half
to Death — A Lonely Cabin — A Native AVom-
an and Trifling Husband — Beautiful Falls
— Ascending Great Smoky — Bathing — Lunch-
eon with Venison and Champagne in the Gap
— Quoi-Ahna-Catoosa — Another Mutiny over
Six Bells — Champagne to Quell Mutiny — Re-
newing Allegiance to Six Bells — Taking the
Oath — Dining in the Gap — Ambrosia and
Nectar — Venison, Champagne, and Perfecto
Cigars — A Toll Gate and a Row — De(s)cent
Entry into Tennessee — Dialect — A Remote Re-
gion— The Chief Writer of Dialect Stories
— Cacograhphy Not Dialect — Night Jour-
neyings Down Great Smoky — Wild Rockets
— AVe Land in a Corn Field — Resolved Not
to be Found in the Morning in a Cornfield with
Two Empty Kegs — A Roadside Dance — A
Poisonous Julep — Rounding Chilhowie — Suj)-

16 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

Page

per and a Nap in a Fence Corner — Maryville
— Panier's and Blanc's Obtiiseness to Music —
A Forgotten Epic — The Author of "Home,
Sweet Home" — Farewell to Saltus Africanus
and Jim — Dissolving View of Jim on a Hill-
side— Knoxville — Off for Home — The End of
the Wagonautic Journeyings by Field and
Wild 268

MINUTES OF THE FIKST MEETIISTG
OF THE WAGOJSTAUTS.

Ae night at e'en, a merry corps,

O' rantlie gangrel bodies,
In wag'naut quarters held the splore,
Tiiey were four jolly laddies.
Quailing an' laughing
They ranted an' they sang;
Wi' jumping an' wi' thumping,
The very rafters rang. (Burns.)

At an adjourned meeting of the Wagonauts, held

parsnant to adjournment — "Hold on," objected

White. "This being the first meeting, can't be met

pursuant to adjournment" — present the President,

H. M. Doak, Secretary R. L. Hoke, and G. H. Bas-

kette and R. L. C. AVhite, private Wagonauts — it

was moved by White and seconded by Hoke that the

Wagonauts spend two weeks this summer about the

Great Bald and the Roan, and the trout streams

thereabout, in the mountains of Northwestern North

Carolina; and two weeks of next summer on the trout

streams about the Quoi-Ahna-Catoosa, to-wit: the

Cataloochie, the Ocona-Luftee, the Tuckee-see-gee,

the Socoah, and the Nante-ha-la, in and near the

Cherokee Reservation of Qualla, in Southwestern

North Carolina.

2 (17)

18 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

At this point the proceedings were foully inter-
rupted by the entrance of a black Hebe, with four
schooners of beer and four portions of limberger
cheese, which, not to speak it profanely, smelled like
sheol, with an ancient, a noisome and sulphurous
funk. The cheese was labeled " Teufelsdrockh's Best,
Eldest, and Fragrantest."

It was determined, 7iem. con., that the Wagonauts
should wear aliases; White, alone, the chronic ob-
jector, interposing, "The apparel's rather thin even
for July." In deference to AVhite's delicacy — which
is well grounded — to mention of aliases, it was agreed
that members might wear such other apparel as they
might deem fit, belly-bands alone being barred.

The Wagonauts then went into an election of aliases.
Brutus nominated White to be R. Elsie Albus. " I
object," shouted White. " I want al-buss-in,' I do,
kept siih )-osa, and I don't want to be advertised to
do all-bussin'. Besides," he further objected, "the
tying of 'perfide'onto Albion has degraded the name
— it's a reflection." These objections were allowed
due weight, and White proposed that his alias might
be "Lucus," which, he maintained, was a literal trans-
lation of White into the latinus vulgus. Panier ob-
jected that this would be a lucus a non lucendo — White
wasn't lucid, and alba never lucus. " Let it be Blanc,
then," suggested Hoke. " I'm not a blank cartridge,"
cried White, besides 'twould be profanity." "It's

c « » «

<- lit

MINUTES OF THE FIRST MEETING. 19

sweetly suggestive of blanc-mange. Cur-ious you
hadn't observed that," suggested Baskette.

"Why not Candidatus to the AVagonautic roamin'
uns?" suggested White, "Let me

Be candidatus then and put it on

And help to " put a head on " a headless Rome (roam)."

Doak objected that the Wagonauts wouldn't be
headless roamers, or their expedition a headless roam,
when he was to be Jason of the party.

It was agreed that, while perfide Alba was going
too far, White and candidatus were not by any
means synonymns. Panier went so far as to say
that White didn't mean candid, which was ruled out
as a reflection on Dr. White's Latin and "parts of
speech."

The previous question was moved, and the question
came on upon the motion to adopt Blanc, which was
carried, so White will go as Dr. B. Elsie Blanc.

It was then moved that Baskette be clad in an alias
composed of the French for "Basket," and " Cor-
beille" was moved. It was objected by Blanc that
Corbeille is a basket in general, while we need a syn-
onym for the particular wastebasket we're borrowing
from the Banner editorial rooms. Brutus suggested
that Panier is a waist basket. " Yes," said Baskette,
"but it's worn only by ladies, and then only on the
other side of the waist." "And," suggested Doak,

20 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

*'Panier's a little basket; and there's no waste of lit-
tle Baskettes about our friend's premises. Besides
the lean and hungry Baskette's French enough now
and waste enough too."

"If we could find something exj^ressive of a bread
basket or a champagne basket, it would be the very
thing to express our friend," said Hoke.

The previous question was moved, and" Panier"
unanimously carried as the alias of our waste Bas-
kette.

Further proceedings were interrupted by the en-
trance of Hebe with further schooners, which w^ere
charged up to Blanc and the Club thus hit harmless-
ly by a charge.

The suggestion of Brutus as Mr. Hoke's alias was
unanimously adopted, after the universal objector,
Blanc, had assailed it with a poor effort at wit, that
it was a Brute part to kill so capital a calf as Brutus
was showing himself to be by his manner of sucking
his schooner of beer, and then to make nothing bet-
ter of him than Brutus. He thought it would im-
Brut-us as a club. This stale calf joke of Lord Ba-
con was hamstrung on a peg, as one that couldn't be
porked off on living Wagonauts.

It was then decided that the President and Jason
of the expedition should go as A. T. Bamp. Panier,
who by this time had grown maudlin, said that the
title was a perfect fit, that our President was a natu-

MINUTES OF THE FIRST MEETING. 21

ral tramp, a capital T-K-ll-Kamp; he'd a ram(p)art
ill these things — he's a ram-part of strength. Brutus
added: "A. T. Eamp woukl be the ram-part of any-
thing he'd go-at." A. T. Eainp was then unanimously
elected the historiographer of the expedition and
bidden to be in all things truthful, and to set down
naught ill malice and, especially, to be gentle and
forbearing towards the shortcomings and frailties of
Blanc and Panier. He was directed to lay in all
supplies and charge to the score of Blanc; but, upon
no account, to allow Blanc to have the handling of
fluid stores.

Suggestion of snakes having been entered upon
the journal, Dr. R. Elsie Blanc was elected surgeon
and medical purveyor in ordinary to the Jason of tlie
expedition, who was, however, given the keys to the
kegs. Dr. Blanc's long practice and exj)erience in
snakes was deemed as rather fitting him to deal with
snakes after they'd been raised than to commend him
as a person to have the keeping of the means of rais-
ing snakes. Dr. Blanc's views on the subject of
snake remedies being well-known to the Wagonauts,
the President was instructed to follow implicitly any
directions of his as to the character of antidotes to be
selected. Ramp was further instructed to be care-
ful, as historiographer, to avoid exaggeration and in-
vention and never to admit that there was anything
he didn't know.

22 THE WAGON AUTS ABROAD.

After another schooner, charged to Blanc, the Wag-
onauts cleaned up the savory fragments of Limberger,
deodorized themselves with nickel cigars of the Mun-
dungus brand, and adjourned sine die.

E.. L. Brutus, Secretary.

MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
OP THE WAGONAUTS.

Farewell, forever, fare tliee well. (Othello.)
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not
escape calumny. (Hamlet.)

The Wagonauts assembled pursuant to adjourn-
ment, A. T. Ramp in the chair. The Club met to
read, consider, and approve the report of the Presi-
dent upon the First and Second Wagonautic Expe-
ditions.

The Secretary cannot proceed without bestowing a
line upon the scene. The portly, noble and venera-
ble A. T. Ramp sits at the head of the table, his ro-
tund, orbed, and moon-sphered face wreathed in
smiles, and yet his attitude is one of conscious com-
mand and dignity. He gravely recognizes the re-
sponsibilities of his station, as he sits, as one on whom
all the gods had set their seal to give the world as-
surance of a man. About him are ranged the compan-
ions of his late toil and glory. He is clad in the
rapt spoils of the warpath. A gigantic headdress
of eagles' plumes surmounts that noble brow — a fit
and aspiring coiffure for that bald dome of thought

and of rule which his friends have, not ineptly,

(23)

24 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

named, **Tlie Great Bald." A necklace of bears*
claws is clasped about that brawny neck. As a coro-
net of honor and not for use, by his side is displayed
a coonskin cap, wdiose tail dangles coquettishly down
by the side of the tablecloth and tempts a litter of
festive kittens to play, with confidence in the beam-
ing good nature of that great man until they actually
climb upon his shoulder and toy with that adaman-
tine cheek, which has blanched the stern faces of
foemen in mortal combat, and yet disdains not the
playful toyings of gentle puss.

It was the spirit of a low envy that led Blanc to
whisper it about that this coonskin was no hard-earn-
ed trophy, won from its savage j)ossessor in honora-
ble combat; but the ignoble pelt of a pet coon, slain
by the accidental discharge of Ramp's fowling x^iece
as he climbed a fence in fast and disgraceful retreat,
in mortal fear of the harmless pet of Indian pa-
pooses.

Even the fair-seeming Panier has been heard to
whisper that the bears' claws are the claws of a sa-
cred stuffed bear, kept in the wigwam of the great
Medicine Man of the Quail a-Quoi-Alma-Catoosa, sa-
cred to the mighty spirit of Gitche-Manitou, shot by
Bamp, by pure accident, as he turned to flee from
the dummy bear in mortal fear.

Let them hurl their shafts, barbed with envy and
tinctured in the woora-woora of biting jealousy, upon

MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING. 25

vulnerable crests. The darts of envy fall harmless
uijoii the head of our mighty hero, Ptamrod and trav-
eller, who hath encompassed so many lands.

From the wampum belt of the President dangle
two glory scalps, torn from the ensanguined skulls
of twin hostile braves, during the great battle of So-
coah, where Eamp rescued Blanc and Panier from
certain death, and enabled them to see the light of
another day, and the opportunity to assail his fame
with envy. Envy has not spared even these gory
trophies of a hard-fought battle. Panier hath spread
it abroad in low whispers that he detected Ramp,
wandering, reeling along Gay Street, in Kuoxville, the
redoubtable hero filling himself up from the can-
teen with limberger courage, and finally assailing
and scalping two Indian tobacco signs. Panier
swears that he saw A. T. Ramp creep stealthily up
to and tear the scalps from these peaceful Indians,
wantonly hurl them in the gutter, and bespoil them
of tomahawk and bended bow and quiver. Blanc
has even been mean enough and blind enough to as-
sail the archaeology of Ramp, and to swear that one
of the scalps is that of a friendly Scotch Highlander,
ye lad in kilt, who was doing duty as a tobacco sign,
and no Indian at all. Envy could go no further; tra-
duction hath here wrought its worst.

The noble Ramp is secretly aware of these asper-
sions of envy; but, with the divine magnanimity of

26 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

the man, lie accepts a sycox)liantic lip-service and
forgives.

As our noble President aud late Jason raj)ped the
house to order, four schooners of sparkling beer
trembled invitingly upon the table^ aud the genial
iiicense of four portions of limberger gratefully as-
cended upon the midnight air. The following pro-
ceedings were then had, to-wit:

1. Resolved, That the Wagonauts congratulate themselves and
the public upon the happy ending of their two va.-^t explorations,
and especially their great leader upon his truthful report of the
adventures of the Wagonauts in their quest for the golden fleece
of unsuspecting Carolina lambs, and, themselves, that they have
gone for wool and returned unshorn — brought back alive by
tlieir gallant leader — safe and sound, after all their perils. They
congratulate themselves that thev have been graciously per-
mitted to be sharers in his hardships and in his gloiies.

2. That the Wagonauts gratefull}^ adopt the veracious record
of their wanderings as a verisimilitudinous history of their ex-
ploits; and, while they are not unmindful that their historiog-
rapher has taken all the best things said unto himself, and laid
all the worst puns upon his comrades, made himself the center
and hero of all the great deeds, and laid all the disgraceful doings
upon his late comrades ; yet, this is the course of history, and
what we want is Simon Pure history.

3. That this faithful chronicle be printed at the expense of the
public, or charged to Blanc.

After these flattering resolutions were adopted,
our noble President arose, with tears and beer stream-
ing down his manly nose, aud dripping from his

MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING. 27

kindly chin and bedewing liis ample cheek and
said, choking with sobs: "Comrades, Wagonauts,
sharers of my toils, my trials, my hardships, and my
glory, I owe to all of you — except what you owe to
me — as favor, protection, safety, honor, aye life itself
— 'owes me for four rounds of schooners and limber-
ger,' whispered the eiivious Blanc — ' and me for six,'
whispered Panier — 'which will never be paid,' chimed
both in unison, with Thersitian speech — "a debt
which I can never repay," continued Ramp. "And
yet I feel that I have only done my duty," and he sat
down sobbing as if his great heart would break, full
of emotion and beer, and redolent of fragrant lim-
berger, amid rounds of roof-shattering applause; and
the last meeting of the Wagonauts adjourned sine die.

R. L. Beutus, Secretary.

PART FIRST.

THE BALD AND THE ROAN.

DRAMATIS PERSONM

E. L. Hoke, A Critical Writer ----- Brutus.

G.H.Baskette, 'Etditor Nashville Banner - Gid H.Panler.

H. M. DoAK, Clerk U. S. Circuit Court - A. T. Ramp.

(29)

O ^V^.

R. L. C. BLANC.
(30) G. H. PANIER.

BRUTUS.
A.T. RAMP.

THE WRGONRUTS ABROAD.

CHAPTER I.

The wagon cheered, Jonesboro cleared,

Merrily did we drop,
Below the hill, below the kirk,

Below the courthouse to^). (Coleridge.)

THE three wagonauts — 11. L. Brutus, Gid-
eon II. Pauier, and A. T. Ramp, the his-
toriographer of the Avagonautic search for
golden fun and the self-constituted Jason,
quartermaster and commissary of the wago-
nautic expedition — reached the historic town
of Jonesboro at 6 o'clock Monday morning.
Panier and Brutus were given leave to
gaze upon the architectural treasures of this,
the oldest town in Tennessee, where Andrew
Jackson held court and John Sevier — "]N"ola
Chucky Jack" — entertained gaping crowds
of admirers at street corners, while he rested

from the hardships of the wild warpath. Ja-

(31)

32 THE WAGONAUTS ABIIOAD.

son stirred up a livery stable and a hotel, and
by 8 o'clock the AVagonauts were on their
way to the blue mountains, whose azure sum-
mits pierced the skies eight miles distant.
Our equipment consisted of Ben, the driver,
two strong' roadsters, a stout two-seated wag-
on, lishing rods and lines, a book of trout
flies, a box of provisions for a cruise of ten
days, consisting of potted meats, boiled ham,
beaten biscnits, cheese, coffee, sugar, pepper,
salt, a coffee pot, tin cups, knives and forks,
and a five-gallon demijohn of old rye as a
preventive of snake bites, a corkscrew for
drawing obstinate lish, a qnart bottle wherein
to store provision of snake medicine npon
brief fishing jannts away from the demijohn
base of operations. As to the value of this
kind of snake preventive, it is enough to
say that, in a jaunt of two hundred miles in
the worst serpent regions of ]^orth Carolina,
our party failed to encounter a single snake
more venomous than a water moccasin.

Passing southeast along the low Buffalo
Ridge, through the old Cherokee county into
the beautiful valley of the ^ola Chuckee, we

THE wago:n^auts abroad. 33

entered Bumpass Cove by an old metal road,
which wound steeply along the clear, dashing
Nola Chuckee, over high precipices, over-
looking deep pools and roaring rapids. At
a point opposite Embreeville we paused to
gaze from a rugged backbone of a projecting
rock upon the remains of the old village and
of Bhiir's furnace, one of the oldest in the
State, generally known as Bumpass Cove
furnace. Below us lay broad, calm reaches
of clear w^ater, alternating with long, steep-
down rapids, where the waters foamed and
bubbled and roared and gleamed in the west-
ering sunlight as they dashed down over great
quartz and granite rocks, rough and rugged,
or round and polished by ages of rolling and
oTindintr of sand and pebbles. Below us, in
the far, the bright river stretches out of sight
behind a blue mountain. Beyond the river
a broad valley-plain stretches to the outliers
of Rich Mountain. On the river bank lay the
old town of Embreeville, named for Elihu
Embree, the founder of the first abolition
newspaper in America, printed at Jonesboro,

whose son, by the way, served in the Confed-
3

34: THE WAGONAUTS ABliOAD.

erate army. At our feet the beautiful river,
compressed to a few feet, ruslied swiftly but
calmly down a gorge cut through an im-
mense sandstone rock, on the headland end
of Avhich we stood and surveyed the other
end where it cropped sheer up out of the
ground beyond the river, a huge backbone
of forty feet in height. The river had once
formed here a lake ai)d a fall, until it cut its
way through and around the end of the rock
and went roaring and seethiug and hissing,
flouting the angry, frowning rock and leaving
it scowling, while the glad waters danced
on their way to the ocean. So it has gone
roaring and bubbling for many a day, and still

It bubbles and seethes and it hisses and roars,
As when fire is with water commixed and com-
mingled;

And the noise of its roaring to the welkin upsoars,
And the flood hurries on never ending.

Behind us lav the valley of East Tennessee
and the lovely vale of the ]N^ola Chuckee, and
around and before us blue mountains, from
the thin-soiled low pine hills to the fertile
beech, birch, and oak covered mountains.

THE WAGOl^AUTS ABROAD. 35

Only eight miles from the railway and civ-
ilization we were entering a conntry of almost
primeval wildness.

Winding along the Chnckee through a
dense shade of hemlocks, laurels (rhododen-
dron), ivy (kalmia) and dark pines, we came
to the sparkling spring opposite the Devil's
Looking-glass. The cool, clear water, per-
petually bubbling like champagne with es-
caping gases, invited us to rest, and here we
poured our first libation as a propitiatory ofFer-
inp- to all surroundinof snakes. The Devil's
Lookini>--<:>-lass faced us across the river, a
huge, perpendicular, frowning cliff, rising
sheer eight hundred feet. Brutus admired
himself in this truthful mirror and Ramp
posed and smirked and gazed at himself. It
fiiiled to reflect the Apollo form of the wago-
nautic Jason.

Ramp here kindly recited for us his first
poem, beginning

A man stood on a frowniug cliff;

A dog stood by liis side;
The man leai)ed off the frowning chff;

The dog could had lie tried.

36 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

A sweet, simple, touching poem, original
in conception and excellent in execution,
which has never been in print before. The
chano'e from the indefinite to the definite ar-
tide is particularly fine. I recalled shooting
a fine fish at this point thirty-one years ago,
with a Sharp's rifle, while lunching at this
spring. I tried to repeat the unsportsman-
like feat with a Smith & Wesson, and only
failed because no fish appeared.

Leaving the JSola Chuckee here, we crossed
over into the Limestone Cove, so called be-
cause of the occurrence of limestone, which
is exceedingly rare in these mountains. A
broad, fertile valley lay before us, enclosing
in its centre the town of Erwin, county seat
of Unicoi, which was first named Vanderbilt;
but the old Commodore failing to respond, the
name was changed to Erwin. Thence our
course lay up the ]N^ola Chuckee again to the
Red Banks, where a primitive bridge has
taken the place of the dangerous but pictur-
esque ford of old times. While consulting
a native about the crossing I spoke harshly
of the bridge as an encroachment of civili-

THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 37

zation upon aboriginal wildness. The old
fellow chuckled and said: "Stranger, you
hain't agwyne to find that ar bridge as much
civilization as vou mout think. Thev hain't
no civilization about hit 'cept the quarter you
pays to git across."

Two miles above the bridge Ave left the
river and began a steeper ascent, toiling up
excellent mountain roads that wound up
chestnut ridges, disclosing at every turn new
beauties in the fertile valleys below and in
peak upon peak, rising higher and bluer
ahead. Sometimes our road, always ascend-
ing, stooped into deep valleys and skirted
narrow gorges, lined with laurels and ivies,
cucumber magnolias, dark green hollies, tall
hemlocks, green undergrowths, and tangled
vines. Through frequent openings in the
green coverts of the gorges the waters of
deep, clear pools lay dark and sullen in the
shadows. Lovely cascades, roaring falls, and
foaming rapids now showed a i)ale ghostly
white and now gleamed l)right and shimmer-
ing, where chance sunbeams pierced the
gloom and fell in a golden shower down be-

38 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

tween raggedj rocky Avails of deep gorges.
It was a gorgeous country.

In such count ly rustic Avit has it that day-
light is brought down from the hilltops in
troughs. Here and there we passed cabins
perched upon rock}^ li ill sides, Avhere a few
cleared acres showed patches of corn and of
tlie hue tobacco now raised in this country,
for the curing of Avhich the natives have
learned to build better barns than grace the
tobacco regions of Middle Tennessee and
Kentucky — better by far than the cabins they
dwell in. Such hillside farms have snof-
gested to the mountain wits that the "farms
looks rolled up like, as if the settlers was
agwyne to move."

Here at a turn in the road, high up on a
steep mountain, opens before us a scene of
rare loveliness. A cold, pure spring* gushes
out of the mountain side and runs across the
road. A lofty peak, beautiful as " Avoody "
Ida, toAvers above us to the right, green Avith
broad-branched, Avaving chestnuts, Avhose tops
and branch-tips are Avhite Avith graceful blos-
soms. BeloAV us and before us lies a broad

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 39

valley dotted with white frame cottages and
log cabins. ^J^hat rare painter, the snn, is
displaying his brilliant eilects of light and
shade npon green hills, upon the forests of
purple peaks right at hand, npon the far,
fjiint bine of distant mountains, u[)on over-
hanging bright clouds, upcm waving corn,
dark in the shadows of high mountains, or
bright green in the full snnlight, and flash-
ing back the emerald light like an army with
weaving bauners, unsheathed swords and fixed
ba3^onets; upon clear, winding brooks and
broad mountaiu streams, dashing darkly in
midday shadows over cool stones and aronnd
great wdiite l)oulders or dark granite masses.

Youder the uoou sunlight gleams like gold,
or shines afar a silvery white, as its beams
fall at varying angles upon brook and stream,
white stones and dark rock masses, or you-
der on broad meadows of pale green timothy,
fields of red clover, or waving acres of dark
redtop, alternating with dark green maize
and the yellow stubbles of reapen wheat
fields.

On both sides of the broad vale lie steep

4:0 THE WAGOXAUTS ABEOAD.

walls of densely wooded hills, with, here and
there, bold, frowning cliffs, peering savagely
out, or bare gray stones glaring in the sun-
light. In the far distance tall peaks dare to
lift their blue into the azure of the sky out
of purple bases; and every peak is head-
dressed with fantastic Avreaths of fleecy
clouds, that now float high and wdiite, now
blush and grow roseate, as if those grim
peaks had whispered something naughty,
now thicken, frown, grow dark and sweep
across our point of view, veiling mountain
and valley and dashing the faces of the hills
with light, quick, grateful showers; then
passing away, leaving blue peaks serene in
clear air and forest and meadow, cornfield
and stubble, smiling and reflecting a myriad
hues, and gleaming Avith a million pearl and
diamond raindrops.

There are many ways of ascent to the
Great Bald, of which we chose that by way
of the Flag Pond, so called, lucus a non lu-
cendo^ because there are neither flags nor
ponds within fifty miles of it.

Pushing lazily on, half the time walking

THE WAGONAUTS ABllOAD. 41

in that delightful atmosphere, up our wind-
ing way, all the time ascending, although
not without occasional descents into valley
or gorge, we stopped at all the cabins and
houses, interviewed all the men, women, and
children we met, and found them, as I re-
membered them in my youth, obliging and
communicative, but as incurious as savasres.
Along with abundant signs of progress and
great personal improvement in manner,
dress, and mode of living, these singular peo-
ple still retain their mixture of native shrewd-
ness, rare hospitality, and obliging disposi-
tions.

One who goes through this country, misled
])y romauces, to listen for dialect, will be
disappointed. Brutus declared that they
spoke better Euglish than he was in the habit
of using. Antique words, forms, and ex-
pressions, and the grammar and pronuncia-
tion of the illiterate may be found, l)ut no
dialect, scarcely even patois. "Spun-truck,"
for yarn or thread; " garden-truck," ^Hruck-

patch," garden " sass," '^ sparrowgrass,"
^^ settlement," with accent on the final sylla-

42 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

Me, ^^gwyne," forgoing, "fetch" for bring,
" battlin'-stick " for the paddle with which the
clothes are beaten in washing, one may hear.
It would take the peculiarities of about five
hundred people compressed into one charac-
ter, to make one speaking such absurdities
as the romancers manufacture. Indeed the
speech of the native differs but little, scarce-
ly at all, from the speech of the same classes
in the lowlands of Middle and "West Ten-
nessee, and for the very good reason that
these are continually recruited from the
ranks of the mountaineers. Such was my
recollection, based upon a youth of summers
spent amongst these people, with whom I've
played the fiddle, danced on puncheon floors,
and hunted and fished. This jaunt has con-
firmed my recollection.

Late in the afternoon we began the ascent
of the Bald's great slopes, outlying ridges
and spurs, up deep, rocky gorges, every one
threaded by its own roaring, foaming stream.
Great gray or black masses of primitive
rock rose up along the road and in the
woods and occasional fields, looking as if

THE WAGOll^AUTS ABKOAD. 43

Deucalion and Pyrrha, doubtful of the soil
here, had sown a double seeding of stones
after the deluge.

A little after dark we reached the last house
on the side of the Great Bald, two mountain
miles from the summit. After some parleying
and polite depreciation of fare and bedroom,
and assurance that we could sleep with the dog-
in the porch or with the horses, or with the
demijohn and the snakes outdoors, our host
consented to take us in. After tlie fatigues
of the day, with appetites whetted by the
mountain air, and the odor of rye, poured out
as a votive offering to snakes, we encompass-
ed a large quantity of excellent mountain
fare.

After supper our host told us that he had
one spare room, which two of us could oc-
cupy, while the other might do the best he
could in the family room, occupied by our
host and hostess, a half dozen tow-headed chil-
dren, and a comely mountain lassie of about
seventeen sumners. Panier and I at once
moved into the spare room. It was Brutus's
first mountain experience.

44 THE WAGOXUATS ABKOAD.

'^ There's yer bed, stranger; I reckon you're
tired — been travellin' and maybe you'd like
to lie down."

Brutus assured him that he was very sleepy.
The fire burned brightly; the ladies sat with
the bed in full view. Brutus stretched him-
self, yawned, and said he believed he'd go to
bed. ]S"obody disputed this article of belief.
Panier and I sat smoking on the porch,
viewing our victim through the open door.
Finally Brutus came out, and asked us how
the devil he was going to get to bed, with

those women sitting there in full view^

I am sorry to say it, but truth compels me to
say that Brutus left a full, large blank space
before '^ women" in his remark to us. Pa-
nier suofsrested that he mi£>ht undress out-
side and make a rush.

After paying his best res])ects to the dem-
ijohn, he returned, stood about the fire,
yawned, and said he was tired and sleepy.
Brutus is a man of desperate courage, but ex-
ceeding modesty. He kicked ofi* his shoes,
turned himself about the fire — as if he were
spitted and bound to furnish an early roast

THE WAGOKAUT8 ABKOAD. 45

— until he got down to trousers and shirt in
the way of denudation — if I may mention de-
nude in nature. Panier reminded him that
we had to make an early start in the morning,
and that "early to bed and early to rise is
the way to be healthy, wealthy, and Avise."

I have never seen such gymnastics. Al-
though he'd displayed an elaborately adorned
nightgown, he leaped out of trousers and
shirt, fell over a rocking-chair, indulged in
a moment's Graeco-Roman wrestling match
with the chair, turned a somersault over into
the center of the vast feather bed, and doub-
led the cover over him, leaving his fancy
nightgown spread out on the floor, and the
rest of his apparel scattered from the fire to
the bed, while the ladies sat dipping snuff,
all unconscious that any one could be making
all that fuss about going to bed. Panier
and I sat chuckling on the porch, resolved
that we'd see his uprising on the morrow.
I reserve that and the ascent of the Great
Bald for the next chapter.

]Sr. B. — True, but slightly exaggerated.

CHAPTER II.

Upon a simmer Tuesday morn,

When Nat are's face is fair,
We walked forth to view the corn,

An' snufi* the caller air.
The risin' sun, o'er Nola moors,

Wi' glorious light was glintin',
The hares were hirplin' down the fur's,

The lavrocks they were chantin'
Fu' sweet that day.

11^ the last chapter I left Brutus enveloped
in one half of a feather bed, and modestly
reposing upon the other half. AYhen, as Cer-
vantes would say, the rosy fingers of Aurora
had streaked the eastern horizon with pur-
ple and gold, Panier and I arose from our
feathery couch, and donned our apparel.
The sun was over in ^orth Carolina, and
we lay under the shadow of the Great Bald,
and beneath the canopy of gracefully curling
mists, to which every dell and vale was send-
ing its fleecy contribution. I entered the

(46)

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 47

chamber where Brutus lay, clothed upon
with slumber and modesty. Saluting the
fair damsel, who stood twixt the fire and
the table, with dimpled arms up to the elbow
in a great basin of potential corndodger, I
called: ^'Brutns, awake; shake off downy
sleep, death's counterfeit; up; away."

Brutus awoke to the light of another morn-
ing, gazed upon the maiden, and said he
thought he'd get up. The damsel went on
kneading the mealy dough, her eyes fixed
demurely upon the basin — went on kneading
as serenely as, according to Coleridge, the
lady, in the " Sorrows of Werther," went on
" cutting bread and butter."

" I'm going to get up," said Brutus, sternly.
After a pause, filled up with gazing at the
dreadful light, streaming in from two open
doors, at the firelight, casting the flickering
shadow of the maiden upon the wall, and at
the swaying form of the damsel, Brutus said,
pleadingly: " I want to get up."

]^ot another sound was heard; the maiden
neither blinked nor stirred, except that she
that dodger stirred; nor sighed nor said a

48 THE WAGOl^AUTS ABROAD.

single word; the only thought came in her
head was there to stand and duly knead
that same panful of dodger bread, all mind-
less of poor Brutus's plight, as he lay there
bewildered quite, with youthful modesty be-
dight.

At last one snowy foot stole from be-
neath the counterpane, a wild, fierce look of
stubborn resolve replaced the modest mien;
and with one bound he landed in the middle
of the floor, pale but determined. Another
leap and he was inside trousers and shoes,
and flying down the rocky path to the brook
below, and with him fled many a modest
blush, a towel, and a cake of soap; while the
maiden went on demurely kneading the
dodger bread, innocently unconscious.*
. After a delightful plunge into a clear, cold
mountain pool, we stored away that same
dodger bread on the inside, where it would
do the most good, laid a sack of edibles upon
the broad shoulders of Ben, and made Bru-
tus chief bottle holder. A little of that old
rye was deemed necessary — not that there

*

True, but slightly colored.

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 49

are any snakes upon the liald, for there are
none; but there are snakes over in JSTorth
Carolina, and none can know when they may
start west to grow up with the country and
meet the traveller unprovided.

It is a glorious summer morning. The
mists are sailing high, scattered by morning
sunbeams. Tlie clouds have lifted from the
top of the mountain and now hang high in
the blue heavens. The woods are fragrant
with sweet scents of birches, ferns, and moist
smelling earth. Laughing streams, dashing
down the mountain sides, or murmuring
along their rocky beds in dark, laurel-fringed
ravines, make the mountain musical. Great
gray rocks, with round lichen eyes, loom up
in the misty gloom of thick woods, like gi-
ants' tombs. Dark granites tower here and
there in the gray, like frowning sentinels,
guarding the sacred haunts of Titan kings.

Our way leads for a mile or more up a
gentle slope, whose fertile soil has reared
great wild cherry trees, giant linns, large
maples, hnge red birches; the graceful forms
of the white birch, old oaks, walnut and

50 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

chestnut trees, cucumber magnolias, and hoi- |

lies, laurels, ivies, and the beautiful mountain ,

dogwood, line the dashing streams, and famil- j

iar alders and elders still hold place. ■

Long, white spikes of rattle weed sit upon j

their tall, slender stems and nod to the moun- ,
tain breeze. The magniiicent foliage and

showy bloom of the queen of the meadow is !

seen here and there. Spikenard, ginseng, ]

i

angelica, snakeroot, bearsfoot, crowsfoot,
and a thousand familiar plants and mosses,
carpet with green the cool, damp, woodlands. !
^ow and then a mountain boomer — a small, :
black squirrel — runs across the road or scales :
a tree. Chippy sparrows chirp, and snow-
birds Hit through the green leaves; but ani- [
mal and bird life are rare at this elevation. ;
The ascent soon became very steep, and I
the trees gradually diminished in size, the \
air grew cooler, the woodlands moister, and
now a fine spring invites to rest and liba- i
tions. Up and up, and now we begin to see I
through the sparser timber higher points
and sharper ridges. Plants and trees are |
thinning out, and new forms are taking the

THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 51

places of tlioye that cannot endnre the npper
air. There's always room at tlie top, some-
body said; but it's small comfort to those
who can't reach or can't endure the top. Tlie
mountain ash, the birch, beech, and moun-
tain dogwood are still constant.

The sickly, yellow green of the hellebore
— gathered for making veratrmn viride — be-
gins to deck the mountain sides with its pe-
culiar and striking blossoms of green in
long racemes and irregular spikes, sucking
poison from the damp fogs of the mountain.
The hellebore now wears a bafiied air, and a
sea-green Robespierre sort of look of despair,
as if it were bewailing that man has turned
its poisons into medicine for human ills,
where it would only kill.

And now we are in the beeches — grotesque,
gnarled, stumpy dwarfs, that stand like
gnomes, kobolds, and wizards, guarding
with their weird forms places of enchant-
ment. They look as if they might have
been once little, queer, dwarf old men and
women suddenly turned into beeches. With
the exception of the red haw, the beeches

52 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

are the last of the deciduous trees, and these
shrink until, at the timber line, they are but
miniature caricatures of the lowland broad, '
spreading beeches of Virgil, where, 'Hu, o
Tytyre, dost practise a woodland lay upon
the slender pipe." xVbove the timber line
grow only firs and spruces, and such arctic
trees; but none of these are found upon the
Bald. Of animal life, here, where thirty
years ago, I found wild turkey and pheas-
ants, feeding upon the abundant grasshop-
pers, we saw only sparrows and snowbirds.

The Bald Mountain belongs to a, pres-
umably, Col. Johnson, of Asheville, ^N'. C,
the Tennessee side, however, being in dispute.
It is used for grazing purposes. Close graz-
ing cuts the grass short and banishes the
flowers, of which I once gathered here forty-
six varieties. The State line runs across the
centre of the Bald, marked by a stone, in-
scribed: ^^S. L., 1886."

The old ditch cut by Davy Greer is still
to be plainly seen, although it has filled up
almost a foot within thirty years. This curi-
ous mountain character came to the Great

THE WAGONAUTS ABIIOAD. 53

Bald from Virginia early in this century.
His appearance indicated Oriental origin and
Virginia traditions, which followed him to
the w^est, made him a lialf-breed Arabian,
son of a roving nobleman. He took posses-
sion of the Bald, levied tribute like a feudal
lord, grazed cattle, protected those who paid
tribute, and waged war upon all who refused
to recognize his right of suzerainty. For one
of his murders he was arrested, tried, and ac-
quitted on the plea of insanity. lie was again
arrested, escaped, and threatened the life of
the sheriff; but the officer of the law was too
quick for the outlaw. He shot and killed him.
This singular hermit ditched off several
hundreds of acres of the bald top of the
Great Bald and cultivated a portion of it,
planting rye and potatoes, living in summer
in a cave just below the timber line, and
spending his winters in a cabin lower down,
where he had a mill. I have often talked
with Ervvin about Davy Greer, whom he
shot as he came down the mountain. He
said it was shoot or be shot, and he preferred
doing the shooting.

54 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

At a delightful spring in the edge of the
Bald we built a huge fire and spitted and
broiled chickens, poured out libations of
snake juice, and spread a meal Virgil would
have delighted to describe, in verse unpro-
faned by invasions of foul harpies.

This grand old mountain is innocent of
house or wagon way and seldom trodden by
the profane foot of the tourist. It stands
here in almost priuiitive wildness, to delight
the soul of the lover of undisturbed nature.
It is not to be confounded with a Bald Mount-
ain of the Blue Ridge, further east in IS^orth
Carolina — a pigmy namesake, which posed a
few years ago as a volcano. The Great Bald
is a healthy adult, not given, like its mole-
liill namesake to hives, or pains under the
apron, or in need of paregoric, or soothing
syrup. It is a staid, settled old mountaiu,
of good, steady habits and fixed ways, spend-
ing its nights at home with its family of
little mountains around it, and always up
with the sun.

The views from the Great Bald mountain
and valley — hill and river, farms and farm-

THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 55

1 louses, and the distant plains of East Ten-
nessee— spread out like a map, arc grand, and
the sentiments inspired glorious; but there is
a sublimer sentiment than these inspire.
There is an awe-inspiring silence upon the
ocean, when one stands upon the forecastle
of a calm morning with one frail plank be-
tween poor mortality and fathomless gulfs
beneath, and gazes at the limitless expanse
of blue ocean and azure sky. There is an
awful silence in the hush of bird and beast
and all the voices of earth and air that goes
before a storm in the deep recesses of a trop-
ical forest upon a summer's night, when all
natui-e seems to hold its breath, in dread an-
ticipation, as the storm gathers.

To me there is a sublimer hush when I
stand upon the Great Bald's green dome, with
the overarching blue above, the haunts of
men blue in the far distance below, and no
voice of man, bird, beast, insect, or whisper-
ing summer breeze, to touch the ear of the ap-
palled listener at that awful silence. Then
one feels truly near to the vast Spirit of earth,
air, and ocean, and feels His infinite vastness

56 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

and his own infinite littleness. Then one
feels like Faust when the earth-spirit came at
his call and he stood face to face with a dread
unknown.

After consultation to-day, at the hour of
six bells, which is " Grogo," the world over,
it was resolved that A. T. Ramp should write
a genuine Italian sonnet to be read at six
bells each day, beginning on the morrow.

Just below the summit, as we entered the
timber-line fringe of dwarf beeches, our guide
suggested a visit to a " wildcat still," which
he said was kept by a desperate ^' moon-
shiner" down the mountain to our right.

"He'll take you-uns fer the 'revenues,' but
I reckon I kin keep him from shootin'."

Out for adventure, here was a fine chance
for a bit of diversion with a spice of danger.
Concealing our tremors from the guide, with
cold shivers creeping down our heroic backs,
we turned ofi^ to the right and soon struck a
blind trail, which led to the beginning of a
brook, which flowed from a spring a few
yards above us and went singing gleefully
down a broad glade of open dwarf woods.

THE wago:n^auts abroad. 57

which gradually grew into taller timber as
we descended. The gentle slope which led
us down for a half hour was covered with
scattered granite blocks, that seemed to
have been hewn for building, they were so
square and regular; and some hewn for Ti-
tanic castle building, they were of such huge
proportions.

Soon the glade narrowed into a gorge and
the slope became precipitous, so that we had
to pick our way down a rugged chasm, climb-
ing from stone to stone, holding on by loose
boulders or by the trunks of trees and sap-
lings, or the gnarled roots and stems or lau-
rels and ivy shrubs. The rock-bound gorge
kept narrowing as we went; and the brook
grew, by continual accessions of streamlets
from either side, until it became a roaring,
foaming torrent, where speckled trout leaped
at roving flies, and darted back and forth
through the crystal waves, flashing in the
sunlight, tempting to sportsman whom time
denied the privilege of casting a fly.

l^ot content with its steep-down descent,
every few yards the stream descended some

58 THE WAGOISTAUTS ABROAD.

more precii)itous rapids and ran, bubbling
and boiling over and among great granite
rocks, rough and rugged, to calmer reaches
and peacefuller flowing, to pause on the brink
of some wild chasm, upon the crest of some
up-edged ledge, for a wild leap into the deep
gorge below. We had to wade dow^n the
rapids, or to creep along the sides, clinging
to ferns and ivies that scraggily grew along
the edges of the torrent. The perilous descent
of the falls was often only to be made by sheer
climbing and clinging like cats to root, crag,
and crevice and rough noses of sharp rocks.
The falls were sometimes sheer-down leaps
of fifty feet or more, making the descent very
dangerous.

The views at the bottom amply repaid the
toil and peril. Here, at the foot of a lovely
fall, we halt and refresh the physical man
from the canteen, stow away a biscuit or two
with ham accompaniment, light our pipes and
sit upon mossy roots of old hemlocks, beneath
the dark shadows of tall spruces, that reach
their giant arms into the upper air and sun-
light. Overhead the rugged granite walls

THE AVAGONAUTS ABROAD. 59

frown and lour, surrounding' the great amphi-
theatrical basin upon three sides, and enclos-
ing, as with rough arms, a lovely circular
pool into which the foaming waters fall, with
a roar that is ever to the " welkin up-soar-
ing." We gaze upward at the white, bub-
bling sheet of water as it plunges over the
ledge and down into the pool, at the dark
rock walls, at the dripping escarpments and
moist hollow depths behind the foaming sheet,
at the fringes of graceful ferns upon the cliff
edges, at the dark spruces and up into the
clear serene blue and the yellow sunlight,
basking upon the topmost boughs. The view
is a reward worthy all toil and peril.

Further down we could see the stream
gliding onward, for a space, peacefully and
quietly, then bubbling and foaming down a
steep rapids, to where it

Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem,

for a flying leap over a steep ledge down into
another rocky chasm. Over the ledge below
us and above the crest of the fall, tall spruces
lifted their dark tops and bathed their top-

60 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

most boughs in the perpetual mist of the fall-
ing waters, and sparkled and glistened in the
sweet sunlight.

"T see Jim's at w^ork," said our guide,
pointing out a thin smoke, curling up far
down the valley.

Such succession of falls we clambered over
and down until we sat and smoked and g-azed
in admii-ation at the wildest, ruggedest possi-
ble basin, encircling a vast pool, into wdiich
the stream leaped with a roar.

" Down that ar nex' slide we come to Jim's
still," said our guide.

''How on earth does he get anything down
there," I asked.

" Right down the way we come. Hit's the
only way, er up the other way."

When we reached the crest of the next
falls, we gazed down into the wild amphithe-
atre below, where Ave could see the curling
smoke from Jim Brown's "still" fires rising
up above the pine boughs.

After vainly waking the mountain echoes,
until they reverberated along the rock walls
and reechoed among the crags above and

THE WAGO^AUTS ABROAD. 61

along the valley in which we were imprisoned,
our i>uide said: "1 reckon Jim won't shoot
without axin' who's coniin'. Gone to sleep, I
reckon. Some o' the boys wuz down last
night, an' some gals an' a fiddle an' had a
dance, an' Jim's wore out to-day."

"Does Jim dance?" asked Panier.

"You bet, Jim do dance."

We were ashamed to sui>'£»'est our fears to
the guide that Jim might make a somnambu-
listic assault and brino- down two or three
unoffending tourists for "revenues." We
plucked up heart and clambered down the
rocky pass, which one man could have de-
fended against five hundred. When Ave were
about half way doAvn, clinging like Avild cats
to the steep sides, the crevices, crags, and
laurels, a shrill voice cried: "Hold on thar;
Avho's that?"

" Friends," shouted the guide.

"Friend, Avho? Don't you come down
hyar. Stop, er I'll pump you full o' lead."

"' Cyarnt T come?" said the guide.

"You kin come, Tom; but you jist stop
them fellers riglit Avhar they is."

62 THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD.

The guide descended, and after some par-
leying got permission for us to come down.
A hale, hearty, ruddy-faced, good-natured old
man of about sixty shook hands heartily and
drew out a tin cup of '^doubling," holding his
rifle in the hollow of his arm.

" !N^ow you're hyar, make yourselves at
home."

As I looked at the ruddy, healthy moun-
taineer, quite a contrast with most of the thin,
wiry fellows of the mountains, I asked him
what he lived on.

"Moonshine an' middlin' an' corn bread."

Only his clear, calm gray eye bespoke the
desperado he was reputed to be and his red
hair the fierce temper he was credited with.

He pointed out his possessions, consisting
of a worm " still," battered and bruised in en-
counters Avith the hated "revenues," a small
mill for a'rindinf^: corn and a number of mash
tubs, baskets, a few old barrels, with "mash,"
" barm," " singlin's," and " doublin's " set far
back beneath an overhanging granite cliff,
which, with the overarching tree tops, formed
perfect roof, shelter, and hiding place.

THE WAGON^AUTS ABKOAD. 63

"Our guide says you cuu dance. You
don't look old, but 1 wouldn't expect you to
cut the pigeon wing."

'^ Jist danced all night las' night with the
gals. That's how you-uns got downi so nigh
afore I seed you-uns. Hit's dangerous Avak-
in' a sleepin' stiller."

He showed us the still and pointed out
^' dents " made by the " revenues."

"Two o' the fellers as done that ar bit o'
dirt bit sand right whar they stood. When
old Betsy talks somebody's got to drap."

"Did they attack you here?"

"They hain't never done that; nur never
will, nuther. I lied her over to the cove,
'tother side o' the mounting, an' I moved her
up hyar out'n the way like."

But the revenues did come, and he was
taken and sent to jail, and to that I am in-
debted for the accompanying portrait.

Jim is said to have killed two " revenues"
and three informerSo He said to me, while in

jail : "' I don't meddle wi' the d revenues

when they ain't a meddlin' wi' me; but I kills
informers like snakes, wharever I finds 'em."

HU)

A MOONSHINER

THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD. 65

Paiiier here indited an ode to the worm of
the still, which I give;

The Worm of the Still.

Jim Brown's old corn and grist mill,

By a dam site
Stood; and the be-dammed-up rill,

By the mill site.
His gin mill stood beneath the hill.

By a dam site,
Where crystal waters o'er granites spill,

By the mill site.
Where spruces dark shut out the light,

By a dam site.
Nor Jim allows, by day or night,

By the mill site,
The hated foot of U. S. '* revenues,"

By a dam site,
To tread, witli foot profane these avenues.

By the mill site;
And, on the bank o' the crystal rill.

By a dam site.
Where sate Jim Brown's raw whisky mill.

By the mill site,
Crouched the dreadful worm o' the still.

By a dam site.

And, smiling, spread seductive snares.

By the mill site,
5

66 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

Prolific of head-splitting "tares,"

By a dam site —
Sate smiling, with sensual charms bedight.

By the mill site,
To dance and wassail to invite.

By a dam site.
Beware, O mountain men, the siren

By the mill site;
In hell a corner hot they're firin',

By a dam site;
Beware, O mountain maid, the vixen.

By the mill site;
In Hades a place for yon they're fixin',

By a dam site;
Beware, O Brown, the tempter

By the mill site,
Or you'll yet be the sad preemptor,

By a dam site.
Of roasting room in nether hell,

By a dam site.
For spreading here temptations fell,

By the mill site.
For coiling here the worm o' the still,

By the mill site.
Beneath the granites by the rill.

By a dam site.
Beneath the spruce shades under the hill,

By the mill site.

THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 67

Panier's ode was received by Brutus with
great applause. I foresaw trouble aud an ef-
fort to oust my sonnets of their proper place,
and kept silent.

Jim liked our lush better than his own beer
or hot singlings and doublings. He apolo-
gized by saying that the boys had about
cleaned him up last night, and no profit
''nuther." As he seemed confidential and
agreeable, I asked him what sort of " gals "
came out to such place at night.

" Bless you, they don't come at night.
Cyarnt git here o' nights. They comes out
in the evenin' an' stays all night. As for
gals, they're tip-top good gals. I reckon,
maybe you'd not count 'em fer much in the
settlements; an' they hain't got no character
to talk up, but they're mighty good mountain
gals."

After a parting tin cup from our canteen,
we bade our host good-bye and set out down
the gorge, a circuitous route of about five
miles, to avoid going three miles back by the
way we came; and a rougher, wilder, more
picturesque gorge I have never seen, and

68 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

three more wearied tourists never greeted
supper and beds; but we were glad we had
endured the hardships and dangers, and felt
well repaid.

The next chapter will be devoted to snakes
and fish.

CHAPTEE III.

Now safe the stately salmon sail

An' trout be-dropped wi' crimson hail.

(Burns.)

I PROMISED to give this chapter to snakes
and fishes; but a moderate use of old rye
has so exorcised the serpent that I might
make a chapter on snakes as brief as
that in the history of that country upon
"snakes in Iceland." In the mountains one
hears wonderful stories of snake dens, and
mountain sides alive with rattlers. Upon my
first mountain trip I encountered a huge rat-
tlesnake, and since that time I have seen two
dead ones. In many summers of fishing
and hunting in the mountains of N^orth Car-
olina and Tennessee I have encountered only
three snakes, dead and alive. Our party saw
no snakes. I am sorry for this; for I have
always contended that nothing in literature
exerts such wholesome moral influence as a

good line of snake stories.

(69)

o

I

DC
liJ

coi

THE WAao:N^AUTS ABROAD. 71

Beginning with the sea serpent, in the loft-
ier realms of literature, and coming down to
the delicate subject of garter snakes — lioni
soit qui mal y pense — the discriminating stu-
dent will find that the human fancy and the
divine faculty of imagination owe more to
snakes than to any other single agency. I
need not dwell upon the first serpent. Where
would man be— and woman too — without the
first serpent? Brutus, who believes in the
ideal, and eschews realism, agrees that no
subject is more provocative of the ideal.
Snake literature is pure. Even the garter
snake may be dwelt upon and furnish themes
for story and song, which will not bring the
blush of shame to the cheek of maiden mod-
esty.

We left the Great Bald bright and early
for the south fork of Indian Creek, stopping
for directions at Sams's Store — where we
found the proprietor sunning himself in
front of his own store. Mr. Sams is one of
the characters of this region — a genial, jo-
vial, obliging man, getting along without
hurry, taking life as it comes, and managing

72 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

to have it come easy, and yet gathering
abundant gear and accumuhiting money,
acres, stock, and children.

"We don't need doctors," said he; "our
only need is for mid wives, you can see for
yourself." When Ben had got through mon-
keying with a refractory tap with a borrowed
monkey wrench, we left the main road and
wound through a deep, rocky canyon, over
a very steep up and down road to a small
church at the mouth of Kocky Fork, where
we were advised to leave our wagon. A
road cut winding up the steep ledges that
overhung Kocky Fork, leading from the val-
leys above down to a mill near the mouth of
the creek, tempted us to see where we could
take a wagon, if we tried. Xo wiieeled ve-
hicle had ever been over it. By hanging
Brutus and Panier on the upper side and
pushing at the stern, with Ben using profan-
ity and the whip, we managed to make about
two miles of such road as no wagon ever
ascended before. At one point we met
a native coming down the hill with a bag
of corn shipped aboard a small ox. The

THE WAGOXAUTS ABllOAD. 73

mill gearing of the ox was like the ox, unique.
A breast rope tied to both bag ends kept the
load from slipping backwards. It was gird-
ed under; and another rope, tied to both bag
ends, was drawn about the steer's hind legs.
The animal was steered by a rope run be-
tween his legs and tied to his horns. The
bewildered animal had never seen a civilized
wagon and three Christian gentlemen. It
took the Wagonauts, Ben, and the ox-driver
about an hour to get him by. AVhen the
driver got by he stopped and said. '' You'uns
is from the settlements, hain't you?"

We admitted that we came from settle-
ments.

^^ 'Pears like you come from towards the
Butt. How's huckleberries sellin' over on
the Big Butt?"

We were not able to deal with this com-
mercial question in a way to conceal our
profound ignorance, and we left him steering
his ox down to the mill, wondering how three
men came to be trusted out from home who
didn't know the state of the huckleberry
market on the Big Butt.

74 THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD.

There is more idealization in fish than in
any other subject. The theme doesn't com-
pare with snakes in deep moral significance;
but in the matter of the pure ideal fish beat
all nature. I come to this subject with a
painful sense of my own incapacity. I know
not how I shall satisfy the multitude unless
another miracle shall make a few small fishes
go a long way.

Letting ourselves down to the creek, down
steep clifis, some two hundred feet, through
laurels and ivies and clinging vines and over
rough rocks, we whi]}ped the stream for two
or three hundred yards without a single
"jump " of a trout. Reaching shady water,
the sport began. I secured the first speck-
led beauty; Brutus followed; and Panier
came last, and then beat us all fishing.
Rocky Fork is a noted trout stream, and as
rough as any I ever saw, not excepting the
Hell Hollow Fork of Clark's Creek. Com-
ing down at an angle of thirty degrees, it
winds amongst great masses of granite and
piles of drift logs, under a dense shade of
giant hemlocks, or spruce pines, as they are

THE WAaONAUTS ABROAD. 75

called locally, in a deep, narrow gorge, whose
steep walls rise high on both sides, their
crests unseen in the dense vegetation. Its
banks are lined with an almost impenetrable
growth of gnarled, knotted, and interlaced
laurel and ivy. It is labor, but labor that
physics pain, to clamber over huge rocks,
moss-grown, wet and slippery, to leap from
round stone to sharp ledge, to poise oneself
upon the crown of a smooth " biscuit " rock,
looking for the next footing, to whip pools
and rapids with the dancing fly, intensely ea-
ger and ever expectant for the leap of a trout.

These delights may be varied as some un-
crossable pool, some unwadable reach, or
some unscalable ledge blocks the way,
chock-a-block, and drives the sportsman to
drag himself and his rod through the tangled
laurel. As Mr. Lincoln said: '^This is
about the kind of thing to be liked by peo-
ple who like this kind of thing." I've always
succeeded in believing that I like it; and
Brutus and Panier were continually exclaim-
ing: '^O how we're enjoying ourselves! "

The brook trout is a slender, scaleless fish.

76 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROBD.

with huge mouth, dark back, and light sides,
beautifully speckled with red aud gold. In
the ideal it weighs from two to four pounds.
A dull realistic view reduces it in practi-
cal fishing to a quarter of a pound Troy.
Whether it take the bait at the surface, or
leap out of the water, or seize the bait in the
water, it always darts at its prey. The sports-
man uses an artificial fly, a grasshopper, a
butterfly, dough, or a red worm, and an ex-
cellent bait at times is an insect, found at
the bottom of streams, where it envelops
itself in an armor of gravels, woven together
by some viscous fluid, as an assurance that
it is good for something to prey upon. Bait
good at one hour is not attractive at another;
and sometimes it is best to fish deep, at oth-
ers merely to whip the surface. Generally
the best time for trout fishing is before sunup
and after sundown.

At six bells A. T. Ramp was called to read
the promised sonnet, and read as follows:

To Mrs. Mary .

Ah! leave thy grief! Be merry, mine, to-niglit.
Love courses through my veins like fire-liued wine;

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 77

My heart's ablaze with ecstacy divine;
My fervid soul's aglow with rosy light.
The swallows southward take their mournful way;
But why should we go sad with wintry brow?
Let's snatch from care and chain the golden now,
And pluck life's budding blossoms while we may.
I know that envious Death rides on the blast;
And cold Decay lurks in the winter near —
Already Nature mourneth flower and leaf;
But Nature's quick' ning love can summer past
Call back, and clothe therewith the dying year;
And so my love shall burgeon on thy grief.

An active sportsman, beginning early and
whipping two or three miles of good stream,
should catch one or two hundred trout. Be-
2*innin<>' at 10 o'clock, when it is hard to
lare the trout from his lurking place, our
joint catch was not above seventy-five, al-
thougli we fished about four miles of rough
water. After exhausting our allotted time,
we enjoyed a plunge in a fine pool, topping
off with a douche in a cascade, pouring down
a smooth rock trough and polishing up with
a libation to snakes by way of taking oft' the
chill.

It is one of the commonest errors of human

78 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

judgment to flout the dangers of the road we
have o-one over. This mistake led Panier
into an acrobatic exliibition over a pile of
driftwood and down a ledge of smooth rocks,
that would have done credit to a ground and
lofty tumbler. Brutus was not content with
bodily injuries of a sui-bruisal nature. En-
trusted with the supply of snake medicine,
he proved as untrustworthy as Judas with
the bag. Poising himself upon the slippery
edge of a huge rock for a leap into futurity,
his foot slipped. O for inspiration for a
poem upon the leaps that were never leapt!
Brutus went sliding down the slippery face
of the rock, holding fast, like grim death, to
the sad neck of an unfortunate quart bottle.
Coming up with a round turn at the bottom,
careless of abrasions, he triumphantly held
up the neck of the bottle, while the snake
medicine went weeping down the obdurate
side of that unsympathetic, un cheered rock,
like oil down Aaron's wasteful beard. When
consciousness of his crime overcame him,
Brutus sank back with a lost look into the
realm of things that were, and wept bitterly.

THE WAGOXAUTS ABliOAD. 79

Panier and I bound him fast to a sapling
hemlock and tried and convicted and sen-
tenced him to be hanged, suspendere ]}er
collem^ as the law hath it. The culprit
meanly took advantage of his constitution-
al right of appeal from Philip as a con-
victing court to Philip in some other con-
dition.

After letting our wagon down into the
roadj we made four or five miles of rough
road and halted for dinner. Across the creek
from the spring Avhere we halted, a shapely
sunbonnet, surmounting a comely form, be-
neath the eaves of a neat log cabin, led Brutus
to undertake the preparation of the fish, to
which I weakly yielded. After a long and
hungry delay, Panier volunteered to see
what was detaining Brutus. After a reason-
able waiting for Panier, I instructed Ben
to look after my fate in case I should fail to
appear, and I went to look after Brutus and
Panier. I had provided all that was nec-
essary to fry a dish of ti'out to make Brillat-
Savarin smack his lips, not neglecting a bot-
tle of genuine olive oil. I found the trout

80 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

cooked done, fried, and hardening to a crisp
on a tray by the fire, an old woman at a
spinning wheel and Brutus and Panier, sur-
rounded by a dozen tow-headed children,
plying a comely mountain damsel of about
eighteen summers and flaxen hair, with all
sorts of useless inquiries, having no reference
to dinner that I could see.

^one can ever know the trouble I have had
on this trip with a weak and useless curiosity
on the part of my companions, which is al-
ways coincident with a good-looking damsel.
I find them continually addressing useless in-
quiries to maiden inexperience, when I want
to be eating, sleeping, or moving.

Recurring to snakes, a sad thing happened
to-day. Driving, pipe in mouth, after din-
ner, along the margin of a placid stream,
Panier suddenly leaped from the wagon, ex-
claiming: "Ah! give me a weapon — a pistol,
quick! "

Brutus handed him a pistol. Bang, bang
— five shots rang out upon the still air.

"Another pistol, quick! " shouted Panier,
as he danced along the bank of the creek, his

THE WAGONAUTS ABllOAD. 81

eyes gleaming with eager and intense gaze
into the clear water. Bang, bang.

^^ There, Ben/' he shouted. Ben gave me
the lines and leaped from the wagon. " There
—under that rock, Ben! " Our driver seized
a small fence rail and began vigorously pok-
ino; about under the rocks, turning over
boulders. Bang, bang. ^^ There he is."
^^What is it, Mr. Pannel?" shouted Ben.
"The biggest snake since the original ser-
pent," cried Panier. Ben worked, groped,
and sweated; Brutus reloaded the pistols;
Panier banged away. After humoring for
a full hour this tribute to the quality of our
booze, which had thus magnified a small
water moccasin, Brutus got down and took
Panier firmly and resolutely by the arm,
gently whispering: "Panier, there's noth-
ing there." Panier turned upon him with
a wild look of incredulous anger and —

"Yonder, see!" Bang. "Aha, there he
goes. I've done him up."

Brutus led him gently to his seat, and we
went sadly on our way.

JN". B. — True, but very highly colored.

82 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

Our next stop was for the night at Erwin.
While we were sitting in front of the tavern,
a gentleman with a marvelous red nose — a
nose that would have taken iirst prize at the
promontory of noses, took a seat and began
to make himself agreeable. '^ Isn't your
name Bardolph," said Panier, with a cool
glance at the vast red nose, and a fit refer-
ence to Fallstafl^'s red-nosed friend, of
whose nose Dame Quickly said of the dying
man: "A saw a flea on Bardolph's nose, an
a thought it was a soul a burning in hell."
For a moment Brutus and I sat, scarcely
daring to breathe. Panier was tempting
fate. The mountain man grew redder of
nose and redder of face, and there stole
over his brow an expression which meant :
"This man's a guyin' of me; and ef he be,
he's a dead man." Panier's coolness and
the forbearance of his friends, who sat smile-
less, saved his life. A friendly expression
came over the face of the nose, and its owner
said: " ]N"o, my name's Squib; I'm puttin' up
lightnin' rods." ^ot even that fitness of
name, occupation, and nose with Panier's

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 83

Bardolphian misnomer conld provoke a smile
on the part of Panier's anxious friends.

I might describe the supper, the biscuits,
the corn dodger, beefsteak, the hot-mush
feather beds, which are yet allowed to torture
human beings in remote spots; but 1 forbear.
^Night's ebon pall overspreads the rotund
earth; mountain and valley are leveled and
made one hue by thick darkness; clouds ob-
scure Diana's pure rays; Panier is writh-
ing with nightmare, w^restling with serpents;
Brutus snores. In that condition I leave
them until the next chapter.

CHAPTEK ly.

A mountaiu maiden, very fair,
Buxom, blythe, and debonaire.

THERE are several ways to the Roan
Moiiiitaiii, the easiest being to Roan Sta-
tion, Johnson County, Tenn., and thence by
carriage to CJoudhmd, on the summit. Five
wagon ways ascend the mountain — two on
the Tennessee and three on the Carolina side.
The Wagonauts chose a winding jaunt around
through the Carolina mountains and a pic-
turesque and difficult ascent on the Carolina
side. Our way led up Limestone Cove,
through a broad valley by the side of JN'orth
Indian Creek, a broad, clear, beautiful stream,
fringed with elders and laurels. Yellow stub-
bles, meadows, and cornfields stretch on
either side to the Blue Mountains, which wall
in the cove from the big world outside and
cut off here a wide, fertile, happy valley,
which needs only transportation to make it
the home of a prosperous community.

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 85

Before us and to our right rises the long,
whale-backed ridge of the Unaka Mountain
— very like a whale and bare in patches, with
what are called " huckleberry balds," which
differ from the balds that lie above the timber
line. Unaka, or Unicoi, is a generic term
generally applied to a range of mountains,
but here fastened upon a single peak.

Rattling along over a level road, we entered
a long lane. We had lifted up our voices in
song, when memory suddenly brought up
recollections of my last visit to this region.
A cool twilight scene came back as vividly
as if it had been yesterday. My fiither, my
younger brother, and myself rode along this
very lane, beguiling the loneliness of the dusk
with song. The past beyond the gulf of war
came back in clear outlines — not with grief,
not with bitterness, but with that quiet sad-
ness of mingled sorrow and pleasure that lies
so hazily blue in the past, with shadows
sweetly tempered by genial sunlight. Two
of those voices are forever silent for this
world. My voice was hushed and our song
came to an end. I sat for a mile lost in rev-

86 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

ery — a fabric of mingled woof and warp, of
dark and bright threads, woven by the mar-
velous shuttle of memory upon time's won-
derful loom.

Passing by the northwest end of the Unaka,
leaving it to our right and rear, we began to
ascend, winding up steep hillsides. Valley
farms became hillside fields, hills grew to
mountains, and soon we were upon the wood-
ed slopes of Iron Mountain. After winding-
upward for miles, a turn in the road, in Iron
Mountain Gap, brought us in full view of the
Roan, with its dark spruce and fir crowned
blufi^s, its heavily wooded slopes and bold
cliff's of a thousand sheer feet or more of tow-
ering rock. Cloud-crowned, this grandest
of all mountains stood dwarfing all surround-
ing peaks. Between us and the Roan lay a
lovely valley, with many a hill and hollow,
whose myriad streams were sending up each
its contribution of fleecy mist, to climb the
mountain sides and join the grey nubia that
hung over the Roan.

A view nigher at hand called for a moment's
Platonic admiration — perhaps Plutonic in the

THE WAGONAUTS ABllOAD. 87

glowing breast of the gushing Brutus. Two
robust, handsome mountain girls, conscious
of their own charms^ sat in the door of a cabin
by the roadside, smiling at each other and for
Brutus and his dark moustache. The mists
gathered about as Panier and I gazed at the
glorious mountain scene and Brutus camped
his soft eye upon the nigher view. Fine rain
began to fall, shutting out all but the near
view. Brutus thought it would be wise to
seek shelter in the cabin, and expressed great
concern for Panier's health. In the in-
terest of a lowland maiden, Ave ordered Ben
to drive on. Fortunately for him, Brutus's
impressible heart is very soft and like the
flesh of the fellow who was " stobbed " nine-
teen times and six to the ^Hioller" at N^apo-
leon. Ark., who said: ^^ Stranger, look after
them fellows IVe been a ventilatin'; I've got
powerful healin' flesh." But, alas! although
his wounds heal by first intention, what en-
during pangs he must leave behind as that
dark moustache, far-gone smile, and Ilamletic
eye career through the country.

Secured against the gentle rain, which we

88 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

found only a pleasing variety, during the
onl}^ half day that we had rain, we rolled on
down the Carolina slope of Iron Mountain,
meeting upon the w^ay a solitary commercial
traveler, sitting in lonely grandeur amongst
his vast trunks and boxes. He gazed ahead,
without so much as a curious glance, as Ben
and his driver saluted. He reminded one of
Eothen's account of meeting a British coun-
tryman seated upon his camel on the great
desert between Palestine and Cairo, when
the two exclusive Britons passed each oth-
er within twenty feet and merely touched
caps.

The drummer is usually a genial fellow,
full of a ready humanity. He is, moreover,
the most abused of men, in view of the actual
sins he commits. In general he is a thorough
business man, a man of the world, a pioneer
of commerce, the right arm of business cen-
ters, a blessing to remote regions, and a civ-
ilizing agent, whom a small percentage of
the unworthy have given a bad name. We
found that the ubiquitous drummer, with his
feminine array of trunks and boxes, had

THE WAGONAUTS ABIIOAD. 89

threaded and raided, every pig-path in the
monntain regions. We heard of him every-
where. Indeed, we found that sweet recollec-
tions of engaging commercial travellers lin-
gering in the bosoms of mountain maidens
were almost the only antidote to the taking
charms of Brutus,

On the far slopes of Iron Mountain we
halted under a broad-branched tree, secure
from the fine-spun rain, by the side of a bub-
bling spring, and enjoyed our midday meal,
with snake preventive accompaniment. Per-
sons have been known to imbibe embryo
serpents with crude unqualified water.

When the duties of six bells had been duly
discharged and the canteen had retired with
a clear conscience of duty well performed,
A. T. Ramp was loudly called by the impa-
tient Wagonauts to read his promised sonnet,
which he did, as follows :

To A Lily of the Valley.

All! love! tliis gladsome night of leafy June
Invites us twain, with balmy bud and flower,
To linger late in fragrant summer bower,
Basked in the chequered light of harvest moon,

90 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

Where Dian lifts her amber plenilnne:
More witching far, of uight, this grateful hour,
That dewy sheen and star-gleam richly dower,
Than, in its glorious glow, the garish noon.
Ah! softly throbs thy gentle heart 'gainst mine—
( And leanest thou on me with perfect faith ? )
Nor recks the rude impulse from mine to thine —
Ah! love! a horrid thought my soul affraith!
Oh God!!! — Dost thou against my heart incline'^
Or, death in life! do I enfold thy wraith.

JN^ow we go rolling down Big Rock Creek,
onr road winding along the edge of a rocky
gorge, deep down in which the wild stream
boiled and foamed, a series of deep pools,
swift, smooth reaches, roaring cataracts,
hissing cascades, and rongh rapids, w^ith
green fields and meadows rising high npon
the hills on either side. Here and there some
quaint old mill, of a kind fonnd only in the
mountains, and of a type as old as settle-
ments in these valleys, sat deep down in the
rocky gorge, with wheel something after the
turbine pattern, and arrangement with refer-
ence to the water, and an upright, perpen-
dicular shaft conveying the power to the
buhrs. Now an old and now a new sawmill

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 91

occupied the post of honor by a dam site,
and piles of pine, hemlock, maple, and wild
cherry lumber showed the importance of the
lumber trade.

The huge Roan Mountain now hung over
us, with its sheer granite cliffs, its woody
sides, and its dark crown of balsams. Choos-
ing the Little Rock Creek road as the worst,
the roughest, and likely to be the most pic-
turesque, we turned to the right, crossing a
high ridge into Little Rock Creek Valley,
and began the actual ascent of the mountain
whose sides we had been flanking cross-
ridgewise. To our right, as we wound up
the creek valley, I recognized the old Briggs
house, whence I made the ascent in 1856.
It was here that Porte Crayon stopped about
thirty years ago. Poor Strother! the skillful
hand that penned the finest travel sketches
written since ^^Eothen" somehow ..lost its
cunning when the author became an ofliice-
holder and allowed his literary connections
to set him squarely against his own people in
their death struggle. Aside from the issues
and results of the struggle, the highest pa-

92 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

triotism at last roots deeply and clings close-
ly and tenderly in the sweet soil upon one's
own spring branch. By all means let a man
expand and broaden, if he expand with him
a profound feeling that his own hollow is the
sweetest spot on earth. Xo other sentiment
ever wrought any good or enduring thing.

It was growing dark when the Wagon ants
bethought them that they must stop some-
where, unless they meant to seek lodging
with broken bones down some deep gorge.
A small room in the rear of a new frame
house, roofed and floored, bat un weather-
boarded, loomed up dimly in the misty twi-
light. Vague forms peered out from between
the naked studdings. "Gentleman," I said,
"here's our last chance; we must put our
best foot foremost. One must go in who can
inspire confidence." I went.

" Is the gentleman of the house at home? "
I asked.

A sweet voice replied: "My father and
mother have gone to the upper farm to save
the grass."

I hardly expected to stay under the cir-

THE WAaONAUTS ABROAD. 93

ciimstances, and asked the way to the next
house; but I exphiined that we were belated
and likely to break our necks if we tried the
road further.

''If you can put up with what I have, you
can stay here," she replied.

Feeling that we were on probation, we
brought in our movables, carefully keeping
the demijohn shady, lest we might alarm our
fair hostess. Emma Jean went about our
evening meal and Minnie washed the dishes
and set the table. In a half hour we sat
down to a table graced with clean table cloth;
brightly polished China and glass, and smok-
ing egg-bread, broiled ham, coffee, fresh
eggs, sweet butter, and fresh buttermilk
tempted to gluttony. The demijohn sat and
looked on reproachfully, untapped, and no
empty demijohn ever looked upon a tliirstier
party of Wagonauts; but we deemed it our
duty, as gentlemen, to avoid giving our fair
hostess alarm.

Supper over, Emma Jean tidied up the lit-
tle room, remade the beds, and then mod-
estly, with the air of a well-bred lady, said,

94 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

^'Gentlemen, you can sleep here; good night,"
and she, with the children, retired to a log
cabin some two hundred yards away, as fear-
less here alone with two small children, in a
deep mountain gorge, upon a rainy night,
w^ith three strangers, as if a company of
knights mounted guard about her couch.

Canova should have seen Emma Jean be-
fore he carved his lovely Hebe. She was
about seventeen, lithe, lissom, and exquisitely
formed, with light-brown hair, fair complex-
ion, sweet but firm blue eyes, that looked
modestly but confidently, small hands, and
delicate feet encased in neatly fitting shoes.
Moreover she was ready, bright, and perfectly
self-possessed, modest in mien^ delicate in
speech, and sweet- voiced. This is no fancy
sketch of our hostess; but it is not to be
taken as a description of the typical moun-
tain maiden. Such Avomen are rare in this
region. In a latter-day Southern novel of
the mountains she w^ould figure as something
lovely in face and form, speaking Hottentot.

We left Emma Jean with lingering part-
ing, prompted by genuine admiration for

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 95

womanly sweetness, modesty, and frank in-
dependence, and wound slowly up the valley,
gazing at her vanishing form as she moved,
pail in hand, amongst the cows. The sun
was shining brightly as we began the ascent
of the Koan, which I reserve for the next
chapter.

CHAPTEE Y.

"Up — idee." (Longfellow.)

TO the tourist who knows that fun is a rel-
ative thing and enjoyment an imaginary
state of the mind, donned as one puts on a
coat, as often in rugged wilds and desert
places as in gilded salons^ I commend the
Glen Air ascent of the Roan. Its views are
finer, its ascents steeper, its hardships greater.
A hundred brooks coming down into Little
Rock Creek from both sides of the valley in-
vite the tourist to stay awhile and whip a
mile or so of noisv, tumultuous waters and
then to find rest sweeter in his wagon seat.
The best sport we have had was found in a
stream one could step across.

After winding far to the right and as far to
the left, we look down upon our road a thou-
sand feet beneath us, where sweet farmhouses
nestle in green orchards and fresh meadows

stretch far away down the valley. The wind-
(96)

THE wago:n^auts abroad. 97

ing creek is seen far below, foaming over
rough granite ledges, pausing to turn a
thrifty sawmill or to grind a meager grist
for a Avaiting mill boy. Yonder the dark
granite jaws of its deep gorge open to swal-
low some gentle brook that laughs and dances
down some flowery dell, flashing in the sun-
light, as youthful maiden glee dances into
and is swallowed by matrimony. Yonder,
between two steep ridges, enclosing a narrow
vale, we can see almost the full length of a
laughing brook, from source to mouth, gleam-
ing in the sunlight, as

Arethusa arose

From her conch of snows
In the Acrocerannian mountains —

From clond and from crag

With many a jag,
Shepherding her bright fountains.

Now the road grows steep and craggy as
we rise to the backbone of some bold ridge,
and walk and push and scotch and " blow "
our good team of smoking horses. Our as-
cent is a going to and fro and up and down,
across steep ridges and deep glens, drained

98 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

by tempting trout brooks. ]N^ow a lovely
grass farm opens up on our way, lying high
up on the Roan, with the finest meadows of
redtop and timothy and excellent houses and
outhouses. From this point we can see, in a
gap above the timber line, the bald ridge of
the Roan's indented backbone; and, descend-
ing some hundreds of yards, the great tram-
way built by some adventurous speculator,
upon which to draw up hundreds of tons of
wild cherry to the summit of the Roan,
whence it was carried by a tramway of twelve
miles down the Tennessee side to Roan Moun-
tain Station and shipped thence to Boston.

Another steep climb and a turn in the road
discloses a clear cool spring and a huge gran-
ite rock for a dining table. Snake medicine,
old ham, ox tongue, beaten biscuit, corned
beef, anchovy-stuffed olives, and water as
clear as ever highest cloud distilled upon
loftiest mountain's brow, to be rectified by
sparkling mica sands and run over cool,
mossy stones, for the qualification of old rye,
invited the tired Wagon auts to dinner and re-
pose.

THE AVAGONAUTS ABROAD. 99

After the hands upon the dial had marked
six bells and the canteen had discharged its
wag'onautic dnty, Panier and Blanc vocifer-
onsly called A. T. Kamp to read his sonnet
for the day, which he did, as follows:

To Margaret, My AVife.

Come, love! — The sofa by the winter fire! —

And, leaning, cosy-like, let's write a sonnet.

Come nearer, I'll remove thy wraps and bonnet.

Sweetly in unison we'll strike the lyre.

Ah! bless the jealous clasp! the clinging knot!

I've touched her cheek! I feel her bosom throbbing!

I see her conscious blushes heart's blood robbing!

The song? Break not this charm of happy lot!

My love! sit here — we will not sonnets write.

Draw nigher, love! — here on my trembling knee,

Enfolded in my arms. We'll sonnets live.

I cannot write. Why all the poetry's quite

Gathered within the swelling heart of me;

And that to thee — but not in verse — I'll give.

Mr. Ramp said, when he had finished with
great applause, that he regarded the sonnet
to his wife as his best; but she, like a jealous
woman, insisted that the first and second
were by far the best, although she couldn't

100 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

see, for her part, why a strange woman shonld
inspire a man like his own wife.

It was then moved by Panier, and second-
ed by Brutus, that the daily sonnet be ad-
journed. Carried, Ramp in the negative.

As ^Ye sat offering burnt offerings of fra-
grant tobacco in old mellow pipes, Brutus in-
scribed upon a large white fungus a marvel-
ously sweet poem to Emma Jean, whom he
addressed under the guise of a glen rose. I
am sorry that I neglected to take a copy of
this remai-kable ode. The following stanza
is all I can recall:

All, Emma Jean! Ah, Emma Jean!

Rose o' the mountain glen;
Thy bonnie e'en, wi' dewy sheen,

Lovely 'yond mortal ken,
Have pierced wi' Cupid's cruel dart.

My winsome Emma Jean,
Profoundly within my throbbing heart.

Wounding deep and keen.

Even the lazy pipe and the indolent siesta
will come to untimely end, and now we are
off again, soon finding leveler road among
the gnarled dwarf beeches, lifting us grad-

THE wago:n^auts abroad. 101

iially into the gap on the Tennessee line.
Thence we climb by devious ways up
amongst the dark spruces and balsams
which crown the bluff heights, where ele-
vation gives them their proper arctic cli-
mate. At last we are on top spinning along
a beautiful road, in sight of the Cloudland-
Hotel, which occupies an elevation of almost
seven thousand feet and nearly the highest
point of the Roan. Undergoing the usual
critical inspection of new-comers at a sum-
mer resort, we rubbed off, poured out liba-
tions to snakes, enjoyed a square dinner, dis-
missed our driver and team, and tried to look
as if we belonged at Cloudland. Ben parted
from us with abundant regrets; said he'd
been many a round with drummers and tour-
ists, but the Wagonauts took the cake. He
dwelt especially upon the Christian i-ecogni-
tion by the Wagonauts of a profound fact in
broad humanity: that a driver, although he
cannot cliange his skin, and he may have
brought it with him from the ^iger, as blac-k
as the ace of spades, yet has soles to save
from snakes as well as the rest. Ben said

102 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

that, while of course he'd rather be on the
inner paleface circle, yet as a matter of
creature comforts, it was something to have
been recognized when the flowing bowl was
sparkling.

In thirty years the changes in the Eoan
are confined to its hotel, outhouses, roads,
fences, and telephone wire. Otherwise it is
as I saw it last thirty-one years ago, wdien it
was a remote, untenanted wild, without cabin
or hut; its acres of fertile soil bare of tim-
ber, except where balsams and spruces skirt
the bluff edges, and chiefly covered with vast
patches of rhododendrons, acres of heathers,
and natural meadows of various wild grasses,
with here and there a space of two or three
acres naked of soil — in mountain speech, a
" cowlick." Great masses of glacier-marked
granites, covered Avith beautiful lichens, are
scattered over the ground. Chano^eable every
hour in its varying aspects of mist and cloud,
this grand old mountain is like the ever
changing ocean, also unchangeable and ever
the same.

I looked for but was unable to recognize

THE wago:n^auts abroad. 103

the huge flat rock on the top of which I
spent a dismal night on my last visit here
thirty-one years ago. Reaching the snmmit
at twilight, prepared only for wild turkey
shooting next day, a heavy rain and thunder
storm came up, drenching the whole face of
the mountain. Masses of flame and zigzag
darts of fire played along the ground, light-
ing up with weird glare. the green grass, the
frowning spruces and firs, and the rugged
granite masses. It rained all night. Fire
was out of the question. The side of the
mountain was one sheet of water. I crawled
up on a huge flat rock and tried to think I
was enjoying myself. The thunder rolled
and crashed and growled along the ground,
making grand music for Titans to dance
stately minuets to; and the vivid lightning
flashes furnished torchlight to dance by.

It was upon that trip that I saAV the curi-
ous reflection upon the mist which is called
the " Brocken mountain spectre," from its oc-
currence upon the Hartz mountains of Ger-
many. I was broiling sundry bits of fragrant
bacon by a fire I had succeeded in kindling.

104 THE WAGOI^AUTS ABROAD.

Hearing what I took to be the call of a tur-
key, I turned to get my gun, and staggered
back, for a moment appalled by the giant fig-
nre that loomed up before me in the mist,
making threatening gestures as I recoiled and
lifted my hands in momentary terror. Then
it stood still as I stood trembling, as if it had
me securely in the grasp of some spell I
could not break. Like all good boys, I'd
been called a bad boy until I half believed it;
and few boys of seventeen can see the devil
without blinking. Although I knew that it
was but the fog spectre of the Roan, it was
as terrible to me for a moment as if it liad
been a real Titan. It is so weird and uncan-
ny that none can see it for the first time
without a sense of awe.

To one who loves nature in all its varying
aspects, without caring for its scientific side,
the Roan is a source of perpetual delight,
with its starry nights, its varjdng cloud ef-
fects, its sweeping mists, its glorious views
of mountain, plain, and field, its bosky for-
est recesses, and deep gorges, its crystal
springs, its rugged cliffs, fringed with dark

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 105

firs and festooned with wild vines, its vast
bald mountain plain, its riches of plant life,
ferns and flowers. To the scientist it is a
very treasure house, said to be, in its flora,
the richest in the world. The student of
natural history finds less to interest him,
but still something. Here the robin nests
and the snowbird digs and plants his cosy
home beneath the edge of some mossy cush-
ion; here the raven is heard hoarsely croak-
ing, not cawing, sailing like the turkey buz-
zard, not flapping like the crow. Raven and
eagle build here their nests amongst inacces-
sible crags, where only spruce and fir find
footing. Poisonous snakes are unknown,
and a small harmless serpent is rare; and by
a wise provision of nature, here, where ven-
omous snakes are not found, the invigorating
air makes snake medicine a superfluity.

If a reference to history may be allowed,
it is said that here, upon the bald plains of
the Roan's highest peak, the forces from
Tennessee and Virginia met on their way to
King's Mountain, and Rev. Samuel Doak,
D.D., ofl'ered a fervent Scotch Presbyterian

106 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

prayer for the success of the expedition; and
Sevier, Evans, and Shelby went on in full
faith to the destruction of British power in
America.

I reserve a further account of the Roan
and our departure for the next and last chap-
ter.

CHAPTER VI.

The point of one wliite star is quivering still,
Deep in the orange light of widening noon;
Beyond the purple mountains, through a chasm
Of wind-divided mist, the darker lake
Reflects it. Now it wanes; now it gleams again,
As the waves fade and, as the burning threads
Of woven cloud unravel in the pale air,
'Tis lost and, through yon peaks of snow,
The roseate sunlight quivers. ( Shelley. )

THE Roan is the true home of the clouds
and rightly named Cloudland, as the cen-
tering point of all the fogs and mists of the
valleys below, for leagues around, to which
they gather and whence they disperse upon
their fructifying and cooling missions to the
lower mountains, valle3^s, and distant hills
and plains. ^Notwithstanding a large con-
densation upon soil, rocks and vegetation,
the air is pure, cool, and seldom unpleasantly
moist.

The Hoan is unsurpassed for the beauty

(107)

Cf)

li.
UJ

Q

D

o
o

(108)

THE WAGOXAUTvS ABROAD. 109

of its cloud effects. In all that is grandest
in nature it stands supreme: in a million
changeful effects of mist in valleys and upon
mountain sides below; in dark rain clouds
in the lowlands and upper mountain slopes;
in climbing clouds sweeping up the ridges,
attracted by the cool mountain top; in far
thunder and the sheen of broad flashing and
sharp and zigzag darts of lightning; in
clouds sweeping across the summit, veiling
its distant i)ealvs, creating weird and singu-
lar effects; in nigh rain storm, with thick
darkness and thunder and lightning of rare
sublimity and grandeur.

We stand upon Sunrise Rock astride the
narrow cleft that marks the State line, and
yonder to the east, a little by south, towers
in gloomy grandeur the great cloud-com-
peller of all the mountain region of the
Blue Eidge and the Alleghanies, the lofty
fir-covered peaks of the grim Black, to whom
even the Roan doffs his cloudy chapeau as
the very Jove of cloud-compellers and storm-
gatherers. Further eastward is L3ainville
Gap, with the bold, square front of Table

110 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

Rock upon one side, and the Hawkbill upon
the other; and the pale, far blue of the Blue
Ridge, stretching in the dim distance, over-
looking the Piedmont and tidewater regions
to the east and coastward. To the south
towers the cloud-capped summit of the
Great Bald, himself no laggard in the busi-
ness of cloud-gathering. Further westward
are the Big Butt range and Rich Mount-
ain group, and in the far distance. Paint
Rock, near the Asheville road. Nearer, al-
most at our feet, the long, low Buifalo Ridge
stretches unbroken for miles across the head
of the great valley of East Tennessee, sepa-
rating valley-plains from mountain regions
and lying near Jonesboro. Beyond this and
over its southern end the beautiful valley of
the j^ola Chuckee extends along the base of
the mountains, westward to its junction with
the valley of the French Broad, wdience they
go to form the Tennessee.

Further northward is the valley of East
Tennessee, from the Alleghanies to the Cum-
berland Table Land, embracing the valley of
the !N'ola Chuckee, of the further French

THE WAaON^AUTS ABROAD. Ill

Broad, of Holston, Watauga, Clinch, and
Powell Rivers and the peaks of Haystack,
Chimney Top, and House Mountains. To
the northwest the dim outline of the Cumber-
land Mountains looms up in the grey light.
Further east and north lie far vague lines of
mountain in West Virginia. Yonder north
by east a river has cut an opposite ridge
squarely down upon both sides for many
miles, leaving a curious gap and scooping
out a deep channel and a broad plain between
the opposite sides. l^Torthward lie the Vir-
ginia mountains, the tall Grandfather and
the Peaks of Otter.

We have noAV boxed the compass, sweep-
ing around the horizon with the far view,
looking into IN'orth and South Carolina, Ten-
nessee, Georgia, West Virginia, Kentucky,
and Virginia. In the near lie the mountain
regions of Tennessee and ]N^orth Carolina,
one tumbled, jumbled, confused mass of peaks
and ranges, mountain piled upon mountain,
as if the Titans had fought their last battle
here and piled Ossa upon Pelion.

All around us, in the deep valleys, narrow

ai2)

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 113

gorges, high vales and broad valley-phiin of
the Toe — a vile corruption of a beautiful In-
dian name — about Bakers ville and Burnsville,
lies one calm, motionless, sleeping sea of
white mist, pale and ghostly, with broad
bays, deep inlets, and winding rivers. Every
stream, where every valley has its winding
brook, has furnished its share of white mist
to fill up the valley. In this ocean of ghost-
ly mist lie blue islands of mountain peaks,
hilltops and ridges, bold, jutting headlands,
with rockv front and lono- indented shore
lines — cape, isthmus, promontory, and penin-
sula.

Over all this sea of white grimly stands
the solemn Koan, its craggy ridges running,
dark and rugged, down into the misty ocean
like long, narrow capes. Presently will
arise one mightier than the mountain ruler-
by-night of the fogs and mists, and they will
arise at the bidding of the glorious sun, and
form a fleecy crown of glory about the low-
ering brow of old Koan.

The sun comes up unclouded. A flood of

light bursts over hill and valley, mountain and

8

114 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

plain. The blue western mountain sides
sink deeper into the shadows; eastward all
is aglow with rosy light; and now all the
ocean of mist is astir, slowly lifting, break-
ing up into fragments, climbing rugged
heio-hts toward various condensing points, to
drift gradually up to the summit of the Roan.
If one could grasp, much less describe, the
myriad changing effects of light and shadow
upon this fairy scene of enchantment: colors,
hues, tints, shades, and names! "With his
boasted gift of speech man has named per-
haps a hundred — not so many. Here every
infinitesimal point in the broad landscape of
thousands of square miles of mountain, hill,
valley, and plain, with its generally prevail-
ing hues of greens, blues, yellows, reds, and
their infinite variety, has each its own pecul-
iar hue. The same tint is one in one light,
another in another light; one hue in the
shade, varying in intensity with the varying
shadows, until one is bewildered with the in-
finite variet}^ of shade, tone, light, and color.
Under the glorious sun's Prospero Avand it is
a very scene of enchantment.

THE WAGOXAUTS ABllOAD. 115

The scene shifts. The traiisitioii has been
so rapid that we are astonislied when a swift-
sailing wave of mist from tlie ocean below
comes flying up, rounding the headland peak
whereon we stand. In a moment we are in
the midst of thick darkness, with naught visi-
ble, save the barren rock at our feet. Changes
of mist and cloud, shadow and sunlight are
made by the great scene-shifter with such
surprising rapidity and startling effects that
now the cloud by which we were enveiled
has vanished. Far clouds, or rather mists
— for clouds lie as high above the mountain
top as they lie above the valleys below — are
still climbing the ridges beneath us; the sky
is almost clear, the long ridges and towering
peaks of tlie Roan are again visible; clouds
float lazily overhead, courting the genial sun-
light. The curtain that shut out the light
and the earth has faded like a dream.

There is something awe-inspiring in these
thick clouds and rapid transitions. The
tourist without a guide, or a thorough knowl-
edge of woodcraft, must wait until he regains
his senses, or he is likely to come out of such

IIG THE WAGOJS^AUTS ABKOAD.

veil of mist with everything looking changed,
weird, and uncanny and to lose his Viay,
Many parties have thus been lost. A Supreme
Judge of Tennessee came out of one of the
Koan fogs unable to find a single precedent
for his guidance, and had to be looked up by
a lawyer like any ordinary litigant. A pair
of lovers spent a night and two days wander-
ing about the slopes of the Roan, and then
failed to return thanks for being found. It
has never been satisfactorily determined
whether the}^ were befogged before or during
the mist-fall in which, presumably, they lost
their way. Since they were wedded soon
after, it made no great difference. The happy
swain is said to have returned thanks to the
fog-spectre of the Hoan for a prompt consent,
following a long waiting, which liad promised
to be longer.

Sometimes on a clear day, one may see a
cloud gathered in the lowlands, wlience one
knows not. There is a brief lighting up of
the gathered mass, with sharp lightning
flashes, a distant rumbling of thunder, and
the cloud grows darker, bright above and an-

THE WAaOXAUTS ABKOAD. 117

gry pui'ple upon its shadowed edges. Kain
descends and we may mark the dark, wet
strealv npon the ground as the clond passes
and fades away, leaving the rain area glisten-
ing and smiling in renewed snnlight.

Sometimes one may see a dozen local rains
in a day or even a dozen local rains going on
at once in the wide expanse of view from the
Bine Kidge to the far distant Cnmberland
Monntains. It is surprising how small is the
area of such rain, when to one enveloped in
the cloud of such rain storm the whole heav-
ens appear dark.

JS^ow a thin mist veils one-half of Lion
Bluff, so that its grim rocks and dark firs
shoAV weirdly in the sunlit mist, like some en-
chanting, dissolving view, while the other
half stands the more darkly and boldly out-
lined in the full liHit. Lion Bluff is so called
from a more than fancied resemblance to a
lion couchant, as the law hath it, with body
well defined and shaggy head clearly out-
lined in a bold headland of rugged rocks,
flanked by a rocky ridge, covered with dark
spruces.

^^ ^ vV-2v. t'^^^ -"-t^- '

\s^-s;^

(118)

THE WAao:N^AUTS ABROAD. 119

Here is also to be seen a piece of natural
statuary grander than any artist ever cut
from marble. A bold granite feminine head,
with Egyptian headdress and cast of feature,
projects from the side of a great bluff, with
low, massive forehead, well defined, express-
ive nose, heavy brow, well curving lips — a
figure as grand and gloomy as the Sphinx
and somewhat resembling it in outline. It is
a strong, solemn, reflective face, with vast
eyes fixed on futurity in deep, solemn re-
pose, as if meditating upon profound ques-
tions, involving the beginning and the end,
the woes and the sorrows of Titans. No
fancy is needed to make out the features,
and the profile grows sharper and clearer
the nigher one approaches and with each
successive visit.

Alas! if one had the brilliant descriptive
powers of a Ruskin, with his wordy and glit-
tering wealth of adjective and mixed meta-
phor, jumbled like mixed pickles in a bottle
and as cold, lifeless, icy, and often as beauti-
ful as a polar iceberg, with George Eliot's
divine power of giving life and breath, thought

120 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

and motion and moral qualities to whatever
she touches, one might describe the Roan.

The Wagonauts grew restless. The Roan
is snakeless as Iceland. The demijohn of
snake medicine fell to zero. As the Jason
of the expedition, I suggested that ayc keep
the holy Sabbath by a solemn walk down to
Roan Station. If I said six miles, I didn't
mean to mislead. Brutus is sternly opposed
to walking. He is so opposed to leg action
that I would expect difficulty in securing
his acceptance of a legacy. It was necessary
to convince liim that Roan Station was only
six miles distant, of which three could be cut
off by bridle paths. I cannot tell a lie, and
Paniei* undertook to convince him. At 10
o'clock of a peaceful Sunday, w^e bade good-
bye to Cloudland, up anchor for home, down
the steep descent, taking the by-paths through
the moist recesses of the thick forests which
clothe mountain sides, that are destined at no
distant day to be covered with smiling mead-
ows and fields and flock-bearing pasture
lands, to the very summit. With all day
before us and the last quart that could be

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 121

squeezed out of the demijohn, we ran on slow
schedule, uuilving frequent halts at cool gush-
ing springs in fairy haunts and sylvan glens,
wdiere deep shadows and moss-grown rocks
invited to repose.

Getting involved in a tripartite discussion
of the universal order and the " eternal fitness
of things," the usual thing happened. We
forgot the particular and lost our run of the
concrete in our absorption in the general and
the abstract, and lost our way. Observation
of ridges and valleys and Jason's knowledge
of woodcraft soon set us right. With an ad-
journment, siyte die, of all questions concern-
ing the general order of the universe, we
reached the great tramway and our road six
miles above Koan Station.

At the first house, except a small cabin,
high up the mountain side, I proposed butter-
milk. An affected fear of dogs, but a real
desire to put the best foot foremost, led Brutus
and Panier to elect me to explore. To my
astonishment a well-dressed, elegant, and
handsome young woman came to the door
and gave me permission to call in my friends.

122 THE WAGO:^AUTS ABROAD.

I had seen a little girl swinging, most nn-
momitainlilve, in a hammock in the back
porch; bnt I had snpposed that she was some
tonrist's child. Soon a foaming pitcher of
fresh bnttermilk, a roll of yellow butter, and
(here in the mountains) a loaf of Graham
bread lay upon the table before us. " Isn't
there something before eating?" asked Bru-
tus who seldom neglects anything. "Grace?"
I asked, innocently. " Well yes — something
of that kind — libations — drink offerings to
the ophidian powers for safety from snakes,"
returned Brutus. "Ah, yes, I'd forgot," I
replied, and, turning to the young lady, said:
"My friends like sugar in their buttermilk."
I will take my book oath that she came back
with real cube sugar, three glasses and spoons
and a jug — that's English, you know — of cold
water. "They never drink water in their
buttermilk," I said, when she'd safely de-
posited the ingredients. " Xo, but you'll
need it," she answered, and discreetly retired,
while I pulled out the last of the demijohn
and brewed three toddies that Jove might
have sipped with the ambrosia at an Olympian

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 123

I
I

banquet; and then we proceeded to precipi-
tate ourselves violently on the outside of
three gallons of buttermilk and a whole loaf
of Graham bread.

When our luncheon came to an end, the
young- lady came to invite us to rest upon
the shady back porch. Brutus and Panier,
who never recognize a good thing when they
see it, began to say that we must move on
to Roan Station. I thanked her and asked
her to sit with us and tell us something of the
mountains. We were joined by her mother,
a refined, well-preserved woman of no ex-
travagant number of years. The mother,
two daughters, and a little girl lived here
alone, coming from Bakersville, N. C. They
saw little company except tourists, and were
clearly cultivated, educated people, and one
of the daughters, we learned was a contrib-
utor to some Eastern magazine.

I soon observed Brutus growing restless
under my allusion to his wife. I knew that
his impressible heart was off again. I knew
that he would find some indirect way to as-
sault me and tax the Jason of the Wago-

124 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

nautic expedition with unkinclness in allud-
ing to his wife, without mentioning the exact
ground of his anger.

We'd scarcely got behind the laurel that
lined the broken tramway when he burst out
with : "I've been lied to — egregiously lied to."

" I suppose you want me to lie about your
wife."

"I was speaking of the lie about that six
miles, when it's twelve to Roan Station. As
for that stale joke about a wife, I've had
enough of that, too." I oftered to go back
and swear that Brutus walks in maiden med-
itation, fancy free.

When we'd made a half mile, Brutus
turned and gazed at the cosy cabin, called
for the canteen, sat down upon a log, and
wrote and read as he wrote, bringing forth
the following tribute to his latest flame and
a sad farewell to Emma Jean :

Ode to Truth.

The canteen? yes; the cup too, please!

(O keg!)
Yes, truth yon side the Pyrenees —

(Cauteen!)

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 125

Ye gods! look there! the pair o' knees

I've got wi' sliding, scrambling;

O'er granite rocks! this mountain rambling!

(O keg!)
O had we Alcibiades!*
And his little team of atomies!

( Canteen ! )
This walking's not a Christian grace ! —

(O keg!)
It's only fit for grovelling race,

(Canteen ! )
As for this rambling, metamorphic!

(O keg!)
I'll try and be as philosophic
'S I can. You say it's pleasure, fun! —

(O keg!)
I'll sum it up, when the journey's done —
"Summit up!" — "Always some 'at up?" —

(Okeg!)
Come, Panier, I would rather sup,
Short-spooned, wf the devil, than that punster
Should play 'pun me what yon call fun, sir —

(Canteen!)
Where was I? On the Pyrenees!

(Okeg!)
And then these trousers — pair o' knees,
Abraded, torn, unpatched, contused,

* One of the many names given our driver.

126 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

Somehow got my wits confused —
Some sort of tangled brain disease-

( Canteen!)
Aye, truth yon side the Pyrenees
Is error on the other side —
So thin lines true from false divide!

(O keg!)
I think 'twas said by Gallic Paschal,
Or other mediaeval rascal.

(O keg!)
ril prove, in metres amphibrachian^
It's just as true o' th' Appalachian
System, they call the Alleghany —
As lovely mountain range as any
Boasting Gaul or Swiss can brag on —
Mountain that we've driv'n our drag on.

(Okeg!)
On t'other side the Unicoi,
I roved a lithesome-hearted boy,

(O keg!)
Till, meeting bonnie Emma Jean,

(Canteen!)
I melted 'neath her love-lit e'en,

(Canteen ! )
If ever love in heart was true,

(O keg!)
True love did my soft heart imbue,

( Canteen ! )

THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 127

My soul was fierce aflame wi' true-love —
As true as ever rhymed wi' coo-dove —
As true as ever from above,
The constant heart of man did m-ove.

(O keg!)
And yet I'd scarce the mountain crossed,

( Canteen !)
My soul wi' passion wildly tossed.
When yon sweet maid in yonder cabin —
Cosy enow to lodge Queen Mab in —
A-nesting sweetly in ivy bowers,
Where purple-clustered laurel flowers,
Lean down to kiss the murm'ring waves.
Of brook that o'er rough ledges raves.
Resounding hollow through cool cave,
Where lowly summer blossoms lave
Tlieir petals in the crystal brook,
And coy trout woo the angler's hook —

(O keg!)
Bless me! again I'm sadly lost,

( Canteen ! )
'Pon brooklet wavelet tempest tossed —

(O keg!)
Ah yes! I'd just the mountain crossed —
Dividing line twixt false and true —
Twixt cloud-false skies and love's true-blue —

( Canteen ! )
When truth I found to error turned —
The love that in my heart had burned,

(O keg!)

128 THE wago:n"Auts abroad.

Was false, a lie, a mere delusion^
A jumbled, hazy, wild confusion,
A self-deceit, a mere dissembling,
As I stood by yon maiden, trembling
With true-love, this side Unicoi,
A love-lorn man, no longer boy.

(O keg!)
O, then, I saw the truth with ease.
That truth yon side the Pyrenees —

(O keg!)
(Yes, Panier! thanks! a bit o' cheese —

(O keg!)
And let me have the corkscrew, please) —

(Canteen!)
To error rank had been transmuted, —
A truth that can't now be disputed! —
And universal is the law:
It's just as true o' th' Unicoi —
As gospel-true o' th' Appalachian —

( Canteen ! )
(These rhymes will split thy tubes eustachian?)
And just as true o' th' Alleghany,
Kaatskills, Sierras, Youghiogheny.

(O keg!)
We change the sky and keep the mind,
But leave what's in the soul behind.

(Canteen!)
Farewell^ my winsome Emma Jean,

(Canteen!^

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 129

Farewell, fore'er, thy love-lit e'en,

( Canteen ! )
Ah, maiden o' the log-locked cabin! —
Just big enough to hide Queen Mab in!—
I'm now, forever, only thine!
Be thou, O be, forever mine.

(Okeg!) (E. L. Brutus.)

Then the solemn cortege sadly moved on,
and slowly wound its devious way down the
valley, leading Brutns, and guiding his halt-
ing steps, as he continually turned to gaze
backward towards his true-love this side the
Unicoi. '^ Six miles yet," sighed Brutus,
" and not a drop left."

Our way now lay through a wald, broken
country by the side of a clear winding stream.
Sometimes we traveled the road, but oftener
the broken tramway. At one point, where
we were on the opposite side from the road,
with a dense laurel screen shutting out the
view, we prepared for a cool plunge into an
icy stream. How were we to know that a
neighborhood path ran just inside the fence?
How were we to know or conceive that rus-
tic swains and maidens were going to dese-
9

130 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. j

crate the holy Sabbath by coming along that
path upon a Sunday berrying expedition?
While sitting on the fence beneath the shade
of a wide-spreading birch, waiting to cool off, ,
a covey of dreadful sunbonnets loomed up in
full view. " Hold on there, girls," I shouted,
plunging into the pool head-foremost, like a |
muskrat. Two jolly urchins came up, hold- ;
ins" their sides with laughter, and I told them ;
to tell the party that we would seek modest
hiding whilst they went by. "We hain't a \
carinV' said one of the boys. " I know you !
don't care, you little imp, but we do," I said,
" and the girls do." Just then a young '
mountaineer came by, and we came to terms.
The tittering procession went solemnly by,
with sunbonnets all set indiscreetly sidewise,
and they had scarcely got by when Brutus
launched himself into the pool like a bull frog, \

exclaiming as he went : " D 'f I can stand ^

those thorns any longer." !

As we walked lazily down the last mile,
Panier thought it best to cross the creek to ;
the road. Poising himself with his umbrella
under his arm, upon the smooth top of a great !

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 131

" biscuit rock/' he leaped for the top of
another. His foot slipped, and he sat down in
the water, with the huge white rock between
his legs and the umbrella under his arm and
back contemptuously upstream. " Why
don't you hoist your umbrella," cried Brutus,
as we rolled convulsed upon the ground.

]!Srext morning our party of Wagonauts
came down for a plunge in the creek before a
delicious breakfast at Roan Station hotel.
While we were out enjoying the clear waters
of Doe River, a waiter came to the proprietor
with : " Boss, dem gemmen wdiar come in las'
night done skip de house."

"Why, George," said the proprietor;
"they looked like gentlemen."

" Cyarnt alius tell, boss; I knowed dey
wnz sompin wrong ez soon as I ketched de
eye o' dat'n wid de black mustacher an'
looked at de cut o' dat little un wid de light
hyar an' mustacher. I lay dey done over-
pus waded dat big fat man dey called Mr.
Ramp. lie looked like a plum gemman."

" They didn't take their baggage, did they,
George? "

132 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

"Dat dey didn't; dat bai-gage hain't got
nuffin in't nohow 'cept three empty quart
bottles; I seed em a strainin' dem larst
night."

A rail journey of two hours through the
canyon of the Doe, as wild and as rugged as
any on the Rocky Mountains, brought us to
Johnson City and the end of the first wagon-
autic expedition.

Note. — The suspicion that our party had
skipped the house is literally true, except
that Brutus was the excepted party and de-
scribed as a " plum gemman."

PART SECOND.

IN THE MOUNTAIN WILDS OF SOUTHWESTERN NORTH CAROLINA.

DRAMATIS PERSONS.

H. M. DoAK, Clerk U. S. Circuit Court - A. T. Ramp,

CH.Baskette, 'EidiiioY Nashville Banner - Gid H. Panier,

Dr. E. L. C. White, K. G. S., K. P. - Dr. R. Elsie Blanc.

(133)

X

.JSl

THE WAGONRUTS ABROAD.

CHAPTER I.

Infandum regina, Jubes renovare dolorem.

KNOXVILLE, 12 M. Three Wagonauts,
escaped from the dog-days' heat of ]^ash-
ville, dash gaily down Gay, the main street
of picturesque Knoxville, toward the long
bridge across the Holston. What changes!
In these streets I have seen — and borne my
humble part — revolution and counter-revolu-
tion; witnessed here riot, there murder.
Yonder I saw the Union desperado, Douglas,'^
wounded by the Confederate desperado,
Wash Morgan, and a few days after I saw
Douglas shot — assassinated — by a shot from
the Lamar House windows. I have drilled
squads, companies, and battalions along these
streets and over yonder hills and hep-hepped
over all these hereabouts. On this Gay

Street, in 1865, myself disguised in the latest

(135)

136 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

]^ew York fashion, and just from Appomat-
tox, I saw seven or more returned Confeder-
ates brutally knocked down and beaten by
Federal soldiers. I spent the afternoon in
pious retirement and took the earliest train
for change of air and scene. Knoxville has
changed and yet it retains its individualit}^,
social worth, and the ancient stamp of its
founders.

On receipt of information concerning the
abundance and venomous character of cop-
perheads in the portion of ]N^orth Carolina w^e
were about to visit, the Wagonauts provided
two kegs of antidote and a canteen as provis-
ion against such breakage as left us exposed
to rattlesnakes in our last journey.

As we bowl along Gay Street our company
consists of R. Elsie Blanc, ruddy blonde, au-
ricomous, fourteen stone weight; Gr. H.
Panier, blonde, shadlike — late shad — angu-
lar, nine stone; and A. T. Eamp. Our driver
is a decided brunette, rejoicing in the Italian
name of Lorenzo, known to us, in rainy sea-
sons as Jupiter Pluvius, in drought as Pom-
ery Sec. As to our team, both bays, but

THE WAaONAUTS ABROAD. 137

Frank alone entitled to the bay, Jim's chief
use was to fill a phice at the off-Avheel as a
sort of balance wheel. Panier lugubriously
remarked, as we hung up on the side of a
mountain, that the only mistake made was in
failing to provide a seat in the wagon for
Jim.

Business men display varying tastes in
their summer diversions. One seeks to
change the sky without losing the comforts
and luxuries of civilization. For him there
are no delightful sharp contrasts, no delicious
lights and shades, no sweet, enjoyable alter-
nations of the rough and smooth of life; and
he w^ants none of these. Our theory of diver-
sion is complete change from all the condi-
tions of daily life. Hence we sought for this
summer the wihl solitudes of the remote and
almost inaccessible mountains of south-west-
ern ]N"orth Carolina. To endure the storm,
to let the rain pour on, to climb alpine
heights, to thread tangled laurel thickets, to
w^ade cool mountain streams and cast the
hungry trout line, to sleep on the ground, in
deserted cabins, in wayside churches and

138 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

schoolhouses, to say to the elements, " blow
ye winds and crack yonr cheeks; we tax not
ye elements with unkindness; pour on, we
can endure;" to relish rough fare with os-
trich appetites, was our aim in going to this
region, where the aboriginal Cherokee is yet
found upon his autochthonal ground and
where are found the highest peaks this side
of the Sierras.

The outfit of such party is a matter of com-
missary and quartermaster wisdom. AVe had
a strong carriage, with three seats, capable
of being completely closed up, a pair of
horses, bucket, axe, hatchet, monkey wrench,
and extra horseshoes. Our edibles consist-
ed of canned corned beef, canvased beef,
and breakfast bacon, a baked ham, butter,
biscuits, sardines, caviare, coffee, lemons,
olives, with ample cooking utensils, table
ware, pipes and smoking tobacco. ]S"o ci-
gars. Two mysterious kegs containing some-
thing ruddy and sunlit, which seemed greatly
to comfort Panier and Blanc, continually re-
plenished a half-gallon canteen. I have never
been able to ascertain Avhat those kegs con-

THE WACtONAUTS ABROAD. 139

tallied, but I think it was about three gallons
apiece. A double bhmket each and a rubber
blanket completed our outfit. Thus provided,
we made two hundred and fifty miles with
comparative comfort and delicious hard-
ships.

Our way led us over the road by which
IN'ola Chuckee Jack (John Sevier) was wont
to lead his backwoods knights to the defense
of the young settlement of what is now Se-
vier County, to launch them like a thunder-
bolt upon the Erati Cherokees. As we drew
near to Sevierville, the foothills of the tall
Alleghanies lifted their low, steep barriers,
vine-covered, " rock-ribbed and ancient as
tlie sun." To the right and left and before
us opened the broad valley of the two Pig-
eons, Big and Little, and their branches and
tributaries. Night drew on, with songs of
cicada, whippoorwill, toad, tree-frog and
bull-frog, the gleam of firefly, and meteor
flash of lightning bugs in meadow and field,
and along alder-fringed and willow-lined
streams, and in dark valleys. The gloomy
way is enlivened with song and jest. Panier

140 THE WAGONAUTS ABilOAD.

and Blanc talk far better than they sing.
For diversion I was forced to sing myself;
but then I can sing — a fact that even Jim
recognized. This exasperating animal lay
down in a swamp and signified his unwilling-
ness to endure further toil for any prospect
of oats, wild or tame. Panier and Blanc
exhibited their mean envy by remarking that
such singing would unhorse any animal. I
alighted and walked, singing a caviare from I
Trovatore. Panier says it's cavatina; but j
Panier is a purist; for 'twas "caviare to the
general." Jim arose from his muddy couch
and followed me, entranced, as the wild \
beasts followed Orpheus. Great is the
power of music. i

At last Jim consented to reach the ford at '
Sevierville. Here was a go. ]N^either our '
Ferguson, nor any one of us, knew the ford.
We assailed a neighbor house with shrill
'' house-ahoy ! " without avail. Assuming the
superior knowledge of a man who's once i
been there, I took the reins and plunged in i
boldly, no matter how coldly the rough river i
ran. Fording a mountain river, with its

i

THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 141

swift currents, rough rapids, and deep holes,
and the night as dark as Erebus, is no child's
play. When we reached the further bank, I
found Blanc and Panier each seated astride
a keg. We reached Sevierville at 10 o'clock,
findiuo' the tavern chock-a-block with Meth-
odist preachers attending Conference. Blanc
and I, in reply to the white-stoled landlady,
declared we could put up with lodgings and
sup at breakfast. Panier's insatiable maw
arose in instant rebellion and asked for pie
— said he could manage to wear out the night
with pie. That man will eat anything. It
was well that Panier prevailed and we had
supper; for we lost that night, wrestling
with the voracious cimex lectularius,
armed and with lance in rest, by actual
weight, two pounds of good red blood
apiece.

Pale, worn, and weary, we staggered in to
breakfast, where we found that uncounted
flocks of chickens had assembled on the ta-
ble, anxious to be eaten by the Methodist
Conference. Our Methodist brethren looked
with pious suspicion upon our canteen and

142 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

kegs; but we disarmed suspicion by explain-
ing that we were going as palefaced mis-
sionaries to the Cherokee Reservation.

Leaving Sevierville and taking our way
up the north fork of Little Pigeon, our road
led us diagonally across the spurs, ridges,
and foothills of the Alleghanies. The
streams now began to change from the dirty,
milky blue of limestone regions into the
clear brown of sandstone hills and then into
the bright yellow, clear, sunny waters of the
matamorphic rock country. As we climb
up and up, bright waters flash forth from
deep coverts, and brooks babble sweetly and
noisily down from gloomy heights above;
ever more and more embowered in thick-set
laurel and ivy, which here replace the willows
and alders of the lower lands. Crossing
ridges, climbing hills, going straight up
gorges and valleys, we enter Cocke County,
aiming across foot ridges, to reach our only
practical route by Mt. Sterling Gap, or
" Starling," as they call it here. Crossing
thus, from the waters of the Little Pigeon to
the beautiful valley of the Cosby, cheered

THE WAGONAUTS ABliOAD. Uo

by Paiiier's recitation of a beautil'iil original
poem, which nothing but his mocle«ty has
kept out of print, we begin to beseech the
obdurate natives for corn.

The story of our further wanderings is i-e-
served for the next chapter, wherein is also
something of our camp and of the natives
and what they thought of the kegs.

CHAPTEK II.

We are such stuff as dreams are made of,
And our little lives are rounded with a sleep.

AS we drove down to Cosby Creek an in-
viting house chilled our ardor for out-
doors. Dusk was drawing on and a ravishing
odor of frying ham filled the valley. A na-
tive was chopping wood at a wood pile.

" Stranger, is this Cosby? "

'^I reckon hit ar," replied the woodchop-
per, cutting us off with a surly tone, without
looking up or knocking off work. Surliness
to strangers is something unusual in the
mountains.

"Any corn in this neighborhood?"

"Dunno; corn's powerful scyace."

"Could we stay all night?"

"Dunno; you-uns mout go up the creek

an' see."

"Drive on," said Blanc; "you axed him a
(144)

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 145

civil question and he gave you a sharp an-
swer and went on axing the wood pile."

" His axions spoke louder than his words,"
said Panier. This sort of execrable punning
is what I have to endure. I never wittingly
indulge in that sort of wit.

Crossing Cosby^ we drove up a large clear
stream, winding along the center of a fertile,
well-cultivated valley, l^o corn was to be
had at any of the many houses along the
way. At a country store a number of natives
gave us good advice. We could camp at a
church a mile up the river. Corn could be
had, always three or four miles off the road.
At last a ^^ mountain boomer," who lived
nigh where Ave expected to camp, would sell
us oats, but no corn. When the case of Jim
and Frank seemed desperate, a man who'd
just bought a half bushel of shelled corn con-
sented to exchange it for forty cents' worth
of the contents of the keg — a transaction in
which the United States had an interest,
which it has lost by the running of the stat-
ute of limitations.

In a few minutes we had a rousing fire
10

146 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

crackling and lighting up a grove of fine
hemlocksj which surrounded the church; and
Ceres was sent to buy oats.

" No wonder dat man hain't gwyne to sell
no corn; he's got eight chillin, an he gwyne
to need dat corn." This is a prolific region.

The unfortunate man was about thirty.
Early marriages, wholesome air and water, a
reckless disregard for consequences, and ig-
norance of Mai thus make from eight to a
dozen children the rule of households here-
about. Panier enviously remarked that they
seemed to raise 'em by coveys. Thus it comes
about that these mountain regions have fur-
nished more people to the great West than
any other hive of human beings, New Eng-
land not excepted.

A combined church and schoolhouse occu-
pies the centre of a grassy grove on the banks
of the Cosby. The stars are out; the katy-
dids fill woodlands and mountain sides with
sweet music; toad-frog and tree-frog make
the valley vocal with wild melody, and all of
nature's night voices make a sublime Wag-
nerian symphony. The smoke of our camp

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 147

fire spreads itself amongst dark spruce boughs
ill spectre forms; the bright fire lights up
black pine branches, casts weird shadows
upon dark masses of foliage and flares with
flickering light down long ghostly vistas,
deep into the thick wood, lighting up dark
trunks, down the long corridors of our sylvan
halls. The neighbor creek bubbles and roars
a few yards away as it bounds along upon its
long journey from the crests of the Allegha-
nies to the Gulf of Mexico.

The steaming pot is bubbling and singing
gleefully, purring with self-satisfaction as it
brews that genuine gift of the gods, black
coflee, which, by and by, Panier and Blanc
will spoil with sugar and add insult to spoli-
ation by lacing it with good liquor, thus
spoiling two good things. Broad slices of
canvased beef broil and suntter on the coals.
Three forked spits, cut from neighbor boughs,
hold slices of fragrant breakfast bacon —
^^ streak and streak" — to the fire, browning
and broiling, dripping upon toasted bread.
By and by will be spread here a feast for the
gods. Already such sweet incense ascends

148 THE WAGOIS^AUTS ABROAD.

amongst spruce and pine boughs and up into
the empyrean, with such savors of steaming
coiFee, toasting bread, and broiling meats,
that old Jove on high Olympus disdains his
lean fare of nectar and ambrosia, and envi-
ously begins to thunder in the west.

" The canteen? " " Ah, Panier, it was you
who first thought of the canteen at lunch,"
said Blanc. A light nip fresh from that mys-
terious keg would not harm an infant before
supper. Blanc has had the canteen cooling
in the creek, not unmindful himself of grog
hour. Two to one; Avell I don't wish to be
drenched, and I accept the inevitable. " Hold
on there, ' Pete,' " cried Blanc as I made a
close inspection of " Job's Coffin " over the
fat, laughing side of the smiling canteen.

Now comes the coffee-cooling process.
There's nothing so hot as a tin cup; but
there's an appetizing delay and a lingering
delight in pitching the dark cherry fluid from
one tin cup to another after the fashion of
Canova's Hebe, as she is represented pitch-
ing the matutinal cocktail for the gods on
Olympus. We linger lovingly about the out-

THE wago:n^auts abkoad. 149

spread feast, as the gods at Troy snuffed with
delight the SAveet savors of acceptable sacri-
fice. And now we fall to —

Then, horn for horn, we stretch an' stryve ;
Deil tak the hin'most on we drive ;
Till a' our weel-swalled kytes, bely ve,
Are stretched like drums.

The meal over, old man Panier '^bethanldt
hums " and pipes are tilled and we " lie like
gods reclined, careless of mankind," stretched
upon our blankets before the fire, with knap-
sacks for pillows, dreamily gazing up into the
spruce boughs, upon the flickering lights and
dancing shadows and through narrow open-
ings into the starry heavens and up to whei'e
the peaks of the Great Smoky stand grim,
dark and silent, guarded by a serried line of
firs and spruces, fixintly lit by the white
beams of the setting moon; and "the place
became religion."

Anecdote, retort and jest go round, as
pipes are refilled and the canteen goes round.
Would that I could Boswell Panier's and
Blanc's ready Avit, infinite humor, and light
philosopy, so genial, bright, and sparkling.

150 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

I

when first uncorked; so malapropos and
cold, when gathered and recorded, like all
irathered and recorded wit, whether of Syd-
ney Smith, Donglas Jerrold, or Hood, ceas-
ing to be wit when coldly printed without
its circumstance and occasion.

Conversation now took a melancholy turn
and dropped into a sentimental vein. It is \
the camp. All three had served the Confed-
eracy from " Eend to eend." It is the camp
— a perfect reproduction of the old days. AYe j
can imagine camp fires to the right, camp
fires to the left, camp fires in front and rear
— stacked arms, furled banners, tired men,
flitting about the blazing fires, preparing the
soldier's frugal meal, playing cards, smoking,
reclining, dreaming of home, laughing, jest-
ing, singing. Back again come crowding
upon the memory high hopes, divine love for
a nation newborn, wild, enthusiastic affec-
tion for a young banner that went down never '
dishonored. As we dreamed and talked in i
broken sentences, what if a silent tear be-
dewed the ground? God help the poor spirit i
upon either side of our great and both-sides- |

i

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 151

honoring struggle who can ever forget the
sentiments proper to his own side and part!
He is no true American, be he South or JS^orth
man.

Alas! it fades; it is not real; but a faint
simulacrum. The magician, memory, has
called up an Alhambra view of a Boabdil
court, a scene of enchantment, a mere mock-
ery, to taunt the steadfast soul and its sweet
memories of hopes, fears, and comradeship.

Our man of the oats and of corn unspar-
able and the quiver full of little arrows, came
over to pay us a visit — a genuine mountain
boomer — a name taken from a little black
mountain squirrel, which I have not heard of
lately. Our visitor has never been ten miles
away from his own spring branch. He is
overwhelmed with awe at the sight of Panier's
breech-loading shotgun. His father was a
Federal soldier; but no armed force ever en-
tered this quiet valley. His mouth and eyes
opened wide when Panier told him that we
came from Nashville, three hundred miles
away. I expected him to exclaim, as the old
lady did when Daniel Webster told her he

152 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

was from Boston, one hundred miles distant:
"Law! stranger, lio^v kin yon live so fur
off?" The canteen was passed and barely
touched. "Drink hearty, stranger, we've
plenty."

"]^o, I'm bleeged," said he, "I hain't had
a drink fur nigh on to two year. I jest
drink fur neighborness. I'm a settin' up late;
but I'd lose a night jest to hyar you-uns
talk."

One of the Wagonauts grew poetical and
recited an ode to night. Observing the ef-
fect npon our visitor, he ventured into trag-
edy in wild, ranting style. It was better than
any play to see the " boomer," with his head
leaned back against the trunk of a tree, his
eyes bleared wide, his mouth stretched from
ear to ear, and his hands clasped in mute ad-
miration. When the farewell of Othello to
war came to an end, he drew a long breath,
and after a moment's silence exclaimed,
"You-uns kin speak, shore; I hain't never
hyerd nothin' like that; " and he hadn't.

Our visitor dei)arted; sleep began to close
tired eyelids and the mind began to w^ander

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 153

off among the lights and shadows, to climb
ascending smoke wreaths, to nod with spec-
tral shadows and weird forms under the over-
arching sprnce bonghs and to replace the
waking realities with the unreal of half
asleep.

Sonorns began to snore in the wagon; and
the fire burned low. Signs of all Jove to
come rushing down before morning warned
us to make down our beds of fragrant spruce
boughs and fern within the church. Stretched
luxuriously upon this sweetest smelling and
most sleep-provoking of couches, I soon
heard Panier wrestling in his dreams wnth
vagrant "chiggers" caught on the mountain
sides, and Blanc's snore musically " dirl roof
and rafter," like the devil's fiddling in ^^Tam
O'Shanter." I lay awake and gazed out at
the majestical roof of bonghs, swaying in the
rising breeze, at the fading stars and gather-
ing clonds and listened to the deep roar of
the mountain stream, the sweet voices of in-
sects, the shrill panthcrlike cry of the night-
hawk, the plaintive note of the whippoorwill,
the low, solemn, melancholy soughing of the

154 THE WAGO]^AUTS ABROAD.

wind as it went sighing and wailing through
the pines, like a lost spirit, until I fell into
unbroken, dreamless sleep.

At dawn we shook off downy sleep and
after this poetical operation, prosily called
Aurora to turn out, feed his team, and make
ready for the road. A plunge into a clear,
cold pool and a moment's lying in the foam-
ing waves of a boiling cascade dissipated all
lingering drowsiness and stiffness from un-
wonted exercise, and whetted appetites to a
fine edge. Breakfast W' as soon smoking, and
I must here say that there's magic in Panier's
touch of the coffee pot. The brow^n berry of
the gods parts with its subtlest aromas under
his deft touch. I am sorry to qualify this
statement by a story of mutiny. As Jason
of the Wagonauts and flag officer of this
squadron I have established six bells — 11
o'clock — as early enough for any Christian's
grog — and the grog hour the world over.
Panier came up with a cup containing sugar
and water, and boldly demanded the canteen,
making pretense of neuralgia and of really
needing a drop. I sternly told him that if

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 155

he was ill the surgeon of the expedition
would settle with him out of the medicine
chest, with his choice of a pui-ge, an emetic,
or a blister; but no grog upon any hypocriti-
cal pretence. I ought to say that I have been
compelled to withdraw custody of the kegs
from the surgeon and entrust them only to
myself. Blanc here interposed with a bald
statement about a touch of rheumatism, ri-
diculously limping up with a cup contaiuing
sugar, very little water and a sprig of what
he called mint. " Not a drop," I said, '' not
a drop until six bells. Besides, if my
botany's not at fault, that's not mint, but
a plant of the solanum family, and possibly
deadly poison." Blanc's narrow escape cast
a gloom over the crew, and I was able to
quell this rising mutiny. My botanical
knowledge, which has been the subject of
scurvy jests with Panier and Blanc, is now
upon a better footing; so that I have been
able, with fair credence, to call unknown
plants by any big name that came handy.

As we were about starting, and Orestes
had already assumed the reins, our visiting

156 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

native came over to see us off. Declining
grog and breakfast, he said he'd only come
to "howdy, ez he'd never seed sich gentle-
men afore."

"How far to Hopkins, on Big Creek?" was
asked him.

" I jist dunno," he replied. " I jist dunno "
seems to be a universal expression of blank
ignorance about here.

Our direct route to the Cherokee country
would have been by Catlettsburg, but that is
impassable. It is our aim to-day to reach
the foot of Big Smoky, across the ridges and
spurs, which stretch northwardly from the
main range. Vegetation has already per-
ceptibly changed its character. Some plants
have dropped out altogether, as we have grad-
ually left the flora of the valleys for the plant
life of the highlands. Late as it is, the chest-
nut trees are laden with white feathery blos-
soms, long ago shed in the valleys below us.
Strange mutations! Blanc and Panier are
just now in full autumnal chestnut fruitage,
and I'm the victim of their spiny burrs and
bitter nuts. The glades and hillsides are

THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD. 157

covered with tulip trees, which we miscall
poplar, rarely the Cottonwood, which is a
true poplar, but seldom seen at this height,
the red birch, the graceful pale-trunked
white birch, linns, ash, wild cherry, cucum-
ber magnolias, whose red fruit is said to be
a substitute for rennet in cheese-making.
Familiar lowland growths are sometimes rep-
resented by similar but unfamiliar varieties.
The familiar bull-nettle grows with a longer
stem, and a white flower has taken the place
of our blue blossom. Along with our modest
flowering nightshade is seen the bell-shaped
flower of the deadly nightshade, the bella-
donna plant of the atropia family. The large
palmetto fern of lower levels is mingled with
many beautiful varieties, suited to this lati-
tude or altitude, which is the same thing.
The deadly crow plant grows here and there,
a grasslike tuft. The fatal hemlock — locally
so-called, although it is neither conia nor
cicuta — with its luxuriant vinelike growth,
mats every moist valley, dell, and glade. The
conium, called in English hemlock, is sup-
posed to be the plant which introduced Soc-

158 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

rates to his daemons in the reahns of Pluto.
The lowly mountain tea, with its birchlike
flavor, grows upon every hillside. The bear-
berry, with a lovely flower resembling the
Cherokee rose or the eglantine, grows with
tropical luxuriance in low places, bearing a
berry very like the Antwerp raspberry, its
fruit a pleasant acid, its semi-vine stalk, hairy,
low, and many branched, its leaf broad and
grape-leaflike — a plant that should be culti-
vated for its flower if not for its fruit.

Before reaching the State line, which is er-
roniously located on the maps, we came to a
mill and toll-gate upon an imaginary turn-
pike. I hope the meal of the old Giant
Despair who keeps it justifies toll-taking —
his turnpike doesn't. We declined to pay
toll upon a '' no thoroughfare; " and the sight
of Panier's breach-loader induced him to offer
us free transportation.

Panier and I, assisted by Demagogus and
the whip, had great difliculty in keeping
Blanc from making a speech at the State line.
The Governor of North Carolina was here
referred to and, in some way, the Governor

THE WAGOISTAUTS ABROAD. 159

of South Carolina was lugged in — how I never
could tell. I think that Panier said it was a
long time between Governors. To save time
Blanc and I agreed to this absurd proposi-
tion, which leads me to reserve a further ac-
count of our journey ings and of the maiden
of Big Creek until my next chapter.

CHAPTEE III.

I

Jura from her misty shroud,

Answers joyous Alps that call to her aloud.

(Byron.)
]^ the last chapter I left Panier, Blanc, and
myself at the State line, involved in some
enigmatical matter concerning the Governors
of ^N^orth and South Carolina. Through the
friendly mediation of Bacchus, who dropped
the reins and passed the canteen, this was
satisfactorily settled.

We have now passed over the interesting
geological series between Knoxville and the
Great Smoky — over limestone, shale, slate,
micaceous slates — over ''grey knobs" and
" red knobs " — not at all attractively " knob-
by" to tourists with a balky horse. We've
passed through, not over, the Chilhowie range,
leaving the two ends of its sandstone ridges
to the right and left of us as we approached
Sevierville. We're now on what Dr. SaiFord,

the State Geologist of Tennessee, calls the
(160)

THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD. 161

Ocooe series, composed of conglomerates,
sandstones, slates, and shales bordering- on
the metamorphic rocks.

Tennessee, it may be remarked in passing-,
while now a niggard in scientific researcii,
owes its present rapid growth in wealth to
the scientific forethought of its earlier men.
In Dr. Troost, a naturalist, botanist, and
natural historian of world-wide fame, and in
his worthy successor. Dr. Safford, it stands
foremost for the value, rather more than the
amount of scientific work. As a result, when
knowledge of its resources was most needed,
just after the war between the States, the
records made by Troost and Salford laid the
State bare to the bottom. Would-be investors
could see to the center of the earth, from tlu;
crests of the Alleghanies to the Mississippi —
flora, fauna, and mineral wealth. Full of
just pride to take scientific rank, our ances-
tors meant science; the result has been wealth;
and yet the poor, dull, practical fool can never
be made to see that the theoretical and the
abstract outvalue in mere almighty dollars all

his stupid practical ashes of sense.
11

162 THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD.

Our way goes, with ups and clowns, till
now we are skirting' the foot of the Great
Smoky range along Big Creek. As we passed
a vine-covered cottage this morning, just after
four fingers of inspiration out of the canteen,
Blanc said: ^'Panier, I know why the frugal
Frenchman, with his dread of owning anybody
anything, drinks wine instead of water."

^'Why?" asked Panier, unsuspiciously.

" Because he'd eau for water."

An awful silence fell upon the Wagonauts.
After consulting the canteen and brooding
for a time in solemn silence, Panier retorted:
" The pun's as thin as the fluid."

" O, you're not acqna-ainted with the fluid
last mentioned," replied the unconquerable
Blanc.

" Wat-er dreadful mental condition you're
in," replied Panier.

. " Udor'n't understand it," came back Blanc,
resorting to the Greek for water; '^ I can
make a wasser one than that if I try." This
is the sort of thing I've to endure as best I
may. Blanc is now engaged on his life w^ork,
"A Plan for the Improvement of the Punning

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 163

Capacities of the English Language, with an
Introduction by Max M tiller."

At last, wet inside and out, tired, soggy,
muddy, looking like a draggled game cock of
a rainy evening, we came to Big Creek bridge
and Hopkin's farm at the foot of Great
Smoky and five miles from the summit of
Mount Sterling Gap.

''Let 'em have the corn; we can buy it
back," said a kind-faced woman. I'm sure
she was looking at me; Blanc thinks she was
gazing at him; Panier is sure that a glance at
his shad-like form aroused her sympathies,
and his quixotic appearance perhaps justified
the belief. After lunch it rained as it only
rains in these mountains. As Virgil justly
says, ''All Jove came down." We found dry
spots in the leaky cabin, which the proprie-
tor doesn't mend as respects the roof, because
he's going to move some time or other; and,
because, like the house of the Arkansas
Traveler, it doesn't leak when it's dry, and
he can't work on it when it's raining.

After lunch Mrs. Hopkins, the mother of
our hostess, came in in a melting mood — a

164 THE WAGON AUTS ABKOAD.

woman of sixty-five, with coal black hair,
form erect, and straight as an arrow; face
still g-ood-looking and step as springy as at
eighteen, with a trace of lingering widow
coqnetry, a deal of good sense, and snch dry
huiJior as I observed once in Mrs. Clemens,
the good old mother of " Mark Twain." Her
hnsband had been killed as a Union man dur-
ing the bitterness of civil w^ar in East Ten-
nessee, but she showed no trace of bitterness
when told that we had been on the other side.
On the contrary, she displayed a hospitable
womanly interest. Asking my name — as the
best-looking of the Wagonants — she said:
"Any kin to Dr. Doak, the Presbyterian
teacher and preacher? I reckon everybody
in East Tennessee knows them. All the 'ris-
tocrats was Presbyterians. There was the
Brazzletons and the Inmans. I lived in Jef-
ferson Coiintv before we moved here. Them
Inmans was good folks and the boys was
good boys." She was surprised to hear that
John II. Inman was a ]S^ew York millionaire.
Blanc vows that I said "Yes, we were all
Presbyterians," when the old lady said that

THE WAGOj^AUTS ABROAD. 165

all the Presbyterians were aristocrats; but I
didn't.

John H. Inman is worthy a word in passing
— a man for Tennessee and the South to be
not only proud of, but grateful to. Born at
Dandridge, East Tennessee, he left a bank
clerkship at the beginning of the war, to en-
list as a private in a Confederate regiment,
whence, through his superior business talents,
he was promoted in a few weeks to be or-
derly sergeant, the business man of the com-
pany— indeed, of the regiment. He served
faithfully in the ranks, a mark for every bul-
let, until his business and organizing capacity
called for his services in the quarter-master's
department, wdiere he spent the last tw^o
years of the war, surrendering in IN^orth Car-
olina a division quarter-master. Certainly a
rapid rise for a youth of seventeen!

Returning: to his home in East Tennessee,
he found fortune swept away, fields ravaged,
houses burned, negroes gone, and a spirit of
hatred and jealousy, which makes life unen-
durable. Indeed, life was not possible, ex-
cept to one too weak, or unknown, to attract

1G6 THE WAGO^^AUTS ABROAD.

attention. Like thousands of the best intel-
lect and energ-y of East Tennessee, he went,
driven from his home by that insane spirit,
which enriched communities north, south,
east, and west, with the intellect and enter-
prise of men who have made leading citizens
everywhere, and left East Tennessee to lan-
guish to this day, as France suffered from the
exile of the Huguenots, and Germany from
the banishment of the Palatinates. East Ten-
nessee is naturally the most favored of lands,
but it is only just beginning to recover from
the injustice which gave Georgia so many cit-
izens aud scattered so many far and wide to be
foremost in the great Southern strides forward.
~ Mr. Inman went to ]^ew York, friendless
and penniless, and toiled for three years as
clerk in a cotton house, becomiug a partner
at the end of that time. In 1888 the house
of Inman & Swan was the absolute ruler of
the American cotton market, with a wide-
spread and powerful influence upon the mar-
kets of the world. In 1888 he began to turn
his attention to railroading, and afterwards
became President of the Richmond and Dan-

THE WAGONAUTS ABr.OAD. 1G7

ville Railroad Company. Perhaps no man in
America has an equal intellectual grasp of
the railroad situation of the South. He has
made no mistakes.

Devoted to the South and its people, he has
done more than any one man to help on that
material development which has advanced the
South beyond its former glory and wealth and
given it a glimpse of power, glory, and riches,
of which the world has had no example — a
progress due, and due almost entirely, to its
own sons and to their grasp of its possibilities.
Like many another East Tennessean, such as
Lowrie in commerce, and Campbell Wallace
in railroading, he has found his chief, al-
though not entire held, in Georgia and the
Virginia and North Carolina sea-board.
Such a Southern worker, too, is John W.
Thomas, the able President of the IST., C,
and St. L. liailway. Although only about
forty, he has made a fortune which is esti-
mated at 15,000,000.

His services to his native land and, broader
than that, to all of his country are enhanced
by the fact that he not only can cherish hon-

168 THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD.

orable memories of determined and gallant
service in the great, honorable, and unparal-
leled struggle of the South, and equally pa-
triotic services to the South in the restoration
of its wasted resources; but he is besides,
what is worth more than all, a genial, kind,
charitable, and affable Christian gentleman, a
consistent member of the Presbyterian
Church, and every way worthy of the honor
paid to him North and South.

By this time the mother had slipped into
her daughter's best dry gown and sat swing-
ing her feet, quite jauntily for sixty-five. By
way of recompense for our intrusion, the can-
teen was passed. The daughter tossed off
about five fingers, remarking: '' 'Tain't often
I see any whisky; but I like it. I think its
healthy." A drink that would have appalled
any of our party didn't seem to affect her in
the slightest. The old lady looked slily at
her daughter : " Jinny got copperhead bit and
like to a died five year ago, an' I don't
b'lieve she'll ever git over likin' a drop o'
liquor for that old snake bite." The old
lady surrounded no inconsiderable dram her-

THE WAaON^AUTS ABROAD. 169

self by way of preparation for future snake
bites.

A pretty mountain maiden of about six-
teen now came in, carrying a two-bushel bag
of corn, followed by a big, lazy lout of a
brother, carrying his own carcass and looking
rather overburdened with that. The girl was
a model for a sculptor in limb and torso.

Begging permission to occupy the stable
for the night, our hostess said we could
stay in the back room, which she assured
us didn't leak much. With one chair, the
bed, and a keg, we were soon comfortably
installed.

These people are capitalists for this coun-
try. The wife seemed to be the head of the
house and the owner of things generally.
They had sold off a stock of goods, some cat-
tle and land, and were awaiting collections
before removing to the Red Banks of IN^ola
Chuckee, Unicoi Couuty. Our hostess was
a kind, good woman, into whose sound mind
had come gleams of a higher civilization than
she enjoyed. Barefooted, with gown at half
leg, she was magnificently formed, bust and

170 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROA:D.

limb, and carried herself, head erect, with
unconscious pride. She had been beautiful
before child-bearing; hard work and the loss
of an older child had written hard lines in her
face. She w^as still handsome, especially
when talking. In repose her mouth dropped
into harsh angles. Sensible, easy, and fluent,
using good English, with a quiet, occasional
flash of humor and appreciation of our ob-
scurest puns, she was evidently superior to
her lazy husband.

It was as good as a comedy to see a little
girl of nine or ten, when she came in from
school, gaze for the first time upon a real
African. Aristarchus blushed as she scanned
his coal black features with childish awe.
^^IIow did the missionary get so black?" she
asked. Her mother explained that the only
negro ever seen in this cove in her day came
preaching through the country as a Mission-
ary Baptist and preached at an old school-
house. He was an object of curiosity and
was finally ridden on a rail and given notice
to quit. Since that time traditions of a black
missionary have lingered in the valley. The

THE WAGOl^AUTS AKIK^AJ). 171

little girl inquired again: "What does the
missionary cut his hair so short for?"

Strange as this may appear, it is siin[)le
fact. The mountaineer prejudice against the
negro is insurmountable; hence the African
rarely ventures into these valleys, though he
is in no danger as a servant and is treated as an
equal so long as he avoids trying to live hei'e.

During the afternoon Blanc strolled, gum-
coated, down the road. A half hour after a
native with a red petticoat about his shoulders,
called forme to say that a gentleman at the
bridge wanted to see me about a " deer drive."
"Gracious; in this rain? What has got
into Blanc?" Donning a gum coat, T went
with him to the bridge; and there I witnessed
a sight for all nine of the Muses: Blanc, sit-
ting upon the low parapet of the bridge, in
the drizzling rain, notebook in hand, writing
an ode to Big Creek.

"AVhat did vou come for? I sent that
idiot off to get rid of him. Clear out and
don't interrupt me. This is the finest thing
I ever saw."

The scene was well worthy of the i)rnise

172 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

bestowed. The broad, clear Big Creek came
dashing down, with many a fall and cascade
and many a long, deep reach or clear pool,
literally out of the clouds. A quarter of a
mile above, the low white mist lay upon the
surface of the water, contrasting with, as it
partly rose and mingled with, the dark spruce
boughs. The river seemed to burst, like an
escaped prisoner, out of its covert of cloud
and dark green. On it comes, yonder leap-
ing ten feet down into a deep pool, yonder
cascading over great granite blocks foi* a
stretch of fifty yards, then down over a hun-
dred feet of smooth stone, and then with a
sweep under the low bridge. Below the
bridge it swept majestically around a curve
between meadows and cornfield, to be lost
downstream in the mists again. Add to this
scene, genius at work in the very throes of
parturition, in a gum coat, with Faber 'No. 2
and a notebook. I left him in labor over a
bi-syllabic synonym to rhyme with "river."
I suggested " shiver," and hastened back to
the fire.

Half an hour later Blanc came strao'O'lino*

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 173

in, a most bedraggled and forlorn-looking
spectacle, lie said that be bad not suc-
ceeded as well witb bis poem as be bad wisbed;
tbat it was not up to bis usual standard;
" but," be added witb characteristic modesty,
" it's better poetry tban either of you can
write." As proof of bis assertion, be made
profert of several rain-spattered pages from a
notebook, whereupon was inscribed bis eifu-
sion. For the benefit of posterity it is here
transcribed under the title given it by the

author :

A Pluvial Dithyeamb.

Like Goldsmith's lone and lonely traveller,
" Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,"

Far from the madding crowd's annoying stir,
While rolls the restless river far below,

I sit upon this damp old bridge and think

How very much I'd like to have a drink!

Not from the river — such a draught, indeed.
Were far too frigid for my cold condition;

Saint Paul himself did not extend, we read,
To stomach-medicine his prohibition —

And so vouchsafe, O Ceres, from thy bounty,

A generous qiianftim suf. of Lincoln county! *

* The name of a favorite brand of Tennessee whisky.

171 THE WAGOXAUTS ABEOAD.

So near and yet so far! the blue smoke curls
Above the humble cabin where, anon,

Heedless of me, my friends — the caitiff churls!—
Will pull the corncob from the demijohn.

And, as they guzzle there in godless glee.

Will leave the world to dryness and to me !

Dryness within — 'tis wet enough without:
Much like the ''Ancient Mariner," I think,

I find there's water, water all about.
And not a drop of anything to drink;

Great wind-blown sheets of rain fill all the sky,

The stream is full — eheu! so am not I!

And here I sit, Marius-like, amid

The ruins of this Carthaginian bridge,

AVooing the Muse, who still keeps coyly hid
Among the pines and other trees indig-

Enous to her fuliginous retreat —

I hope Marius had a drier seat!

The air is full of sound: the cataract's roar,

The sullen sough of wind through dripping trees.

And o'er it all I hear distinct, once more.
The raucous voice of Alcibiades *

The old, familiar query skyward toss,

Asking : "Am I a soljer ov de cross? "

I came to write a poem for the maid

Whose large and generous welcome was so sweet —

*

One of the very classical names given our colored driver. |

i

THE WAGON AUTS AHllOAJ). 175

A grateful sonnet, erewliile to be laid

In homage at her large and generous feet,
Magenta-stockmged- -but the hope is vain:
How can a man write verses in the rain?

Here goes once more: O beauteous mountain maid!

0 dryad, naiad, nymph, rolled into one,
Sporting like "Amaryllis in the shade,"

Or glancing 'twixt the snnshiue and the sun,
In gay, glad, giddy, girlsome glee — alack!
There goes a large, cold raindrop down my back!

"Dryad," said I? Nay, anything but them!

1 call to mind the Carolina sages
Whose luminous, omniscient apothegm

Will gild with glory all the coming ages,
And make without disguise the frank admission:
I really could not stand a dry-ad-dition!

Is life worth living longer? There, below,
The river rages, all athirst for blood;

Dare I, despite its cruel-gleaming flow.
Leap, Cassius-like, into this angry flood,

And be "a dem'd, damp, moist, unpleasant body?"

Not now — I think I'll go and try to find a toddy!

Describing the scene to Panier, onrliostcss
said: "Is he a poet, a real poet?" We as-
sured her that be was a great poet. He mod-
estly declined to read bis verses to lier; but
we detected him giving her a revised copy

176 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

substantially like that given above. Panier
gave her four pretty lines which cost him two
hours' labor, inscribed to her little daughter.
I saw myself fading into obscurity. " Mad-
am," I said, " these gentlemen have to cudgel
their dull brains as if they were oxen only to
drag out a few lines of poor verse. I'll go
back home if I can't talk better poetry than
they can write. Here goes to your beautiful

Big Creek :

Big Creek arose

From her conch of snows
In the far bine Al'ghany Mountains ;
From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag " —

" Hold on there," shouted the mean, envi-
ous Panier and Blanc in disgraceful chorus,
''you played that game the time you had that
^jag' over on the Poan."

Without noticing the mean interruption, I

proceeded :

And gliding and springing,

Big Creek went singing,

In murmurs as soft as sleep.

The earth seemed to love her,
And heaven smiled above her,

As she lingered toward the deep.

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 177

Our fair hostess clapped hei- hands with
dehght: '^Ah, I know that's real poetry; 1
never heard anything like that." l*anier and
Blanc meanly charged me with stealing those
beautiful lines; but the charge fell Hat, and I
shall linger in the traditions of this valley as
the genuine poet of Big Creek.

AVe turned sharply up the mountain side;
and, after a mile of winding, our last night's
resting place lay almost straight down be-
neath us. In this pure atmosphere walking
scarcely tires the toiler; but one would like
the option of riding when one has hired a
team. It was as much as Sysyphus, the
driver, and Frank could do to pull Jim and
the wagon. Soon it grew misty and no rain-
fall was needed to saturate oui- garments,
^ow and then the mists were all sw^ept aside
by some magical zephyr, disclosing beauti-
ful view^s of height on height, peak on peak
above and lovely valleys below, glistening
with raindrops in the moment's sunlight.
Floating clouds lie spread out like fleeces of
enchanted wool, or lazily climb the mountain

sides, or, deep down in the valleys, long
12

178 THE WAao:N^AUTS AIUIOAD.

white lines of mist mark out the windino-
ways of devious creeks, or fill whole valleys
w^ith fairy lakes, dark in the shadows, and
brightly gleaming in the chance sunlight.

Here, at a turn in the road, a lovely cloud
view opens up to the left and rear. A dozen
distant lofty peaks and lower mountains stand
amphitheatre-like, dim grey-blue in the thin
clouds, like ghosts of departed mountains re-
visiting the scene of former sentinel duly.
The upper clouds drift away, the mists grow
white and clear, the blue deepens upon moun-
tain sides and summits, the wind rapidly scat-
ters the mist in whirling sprays, curliug up-
w^ard and away, until the unveiled blue of
mountains looks into the azure vault above.
In the distance between high peaks are seen
the far-off ChilhoAvies, with their low sand-
stone - girt sides and pine-crowned sharp
ridges. A half mile on and all is dark again ;
the rain comes down in torrents and Jupiter
Pluvius drags closer his rul)ber blanket.

We are now in the region of the metamor- !
phic rocks, which, for the most part, lie in \
i^ortli Carolina. The vegetation has become !

I

THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAI). 179

alpine and we are rapidly ap})roaching' thu
climate and llora of Canada. Animal life
there is almost none. ]^o hnm or chirp of
hnmble bee, honey bee, dragon lly, or cricket
enlivens the way. Save now and then the
scream of the eagle, the cawing of a crow, or
the croak of a raven, no sound is ever heard
npon these remote summits.

All human sounds have been left far below,
the hush is burdensome, and the soughing of
the Avind but makes the silence oppressively
audible. In this awful stillness we welcome
the voice of the glorious thunder, ''leaping
the live crags among," reechoing from peak
to peak and crag to crag, shaking the very
granite foundations beneath us. In the
midst of the gloom of Erebus we are glad-
dened by the fierce lightning, flash iug lurid
and zigzag, sharply piercing the pale mists
Avith lambent tongues of fire, weaving i)lex-
ures of flame through and through black
thunder clouds, broadly inspiring and light-
ing u}) the whole vast enveloping cloud mass
around us.

At last we draw nigli to Mount Sterling

180 THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD.

Gap, on the divide, at the suiiimit of the great
Appahichian chain. The valleys and moun-
tains of Tennessee lie behind ns. We are
abont to enter a new-old country, inhabited
by a similar, but not by the same, people,
dwelling' upon a geological foundation of an
older series, with a dilFerent flora. The peo-
ple of the slopes behind ns were mostly Union
people, noAV Republicans, detaining most
of their primitive characteristics, they have
been a little more in contact with the world
than their Carolina brethren over the great
divide. The forms of speech differ slightly.
In the main, the same people without close
connections with one another liave developed
subtle differences easier to note than to de-
scribe or define.

The Carolina people here were mostly
Southern and are now generally Democrats.
This difference, however, was due to political
conditions. Beyond this there are surface,
not radical, differences such as peoples de-
velop when dwelling apart, each secluded
from the great world and that association
which makes the cultivated classes in all civ-

THE WAGO^AUTS ABKOAD. 181

ilizecl countries so much of one type that it is
hard to assign the nationality of photographic
selections from the educated classes of dif-
ferent nations.

The reader may expect a treatise on dia-
lect. Much of my boyhood was spent hunt-
ing, fishing, and frolicking with these peo[)le.
I have since visited the mountain regions of
North Carolina and Tennessee a great deal,
observing closely the manners, cnstoms, and
speech of the people. I can easily trace such
peculiarities of speech as T have observed to
the days of Chaucer, Sir Thomas More, and
Mandeville, but I have heard no dialect.
Romance writers have not been able to resist
the temptation to surprise their I'eaders with
most uncolloquial dialect, which lies chiefly
in their own grotesque spelling. Such dia-
lect is as easily read by a cultivated student
as a ])age of the Hamlet quarto of 1603, or the
folio of 1623, with their variegated spelling
and antique letters. We have here simply
the language of tradition, without the growth
of written speech. These peoi)le have had
their antique language handed down to them

182 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

from father to son. Hence it has responded
slowly to the changes going on amongst the
lettered classes. It is still plain English
speech, as easily understood when spoken as
the talk of the Harvard graduate. I have
known a dialect monger to put into the mouth
of a mountain character the Yankee " heft"
for ''weight," or ''guess" for "reckon;"
wdien it may he assumed tliat the man who
uses either "heft" or "guess " Avas either in
the Federal army or of the household of one
who was.

But here's Mount Sterling Gap, and a
good-natured looking fellow waiting astride
the fence, of whom ^Ye would ask some ques-
tions about our road; so that the further
journey ings of the Wagonauts are reserved
for the next chapter — after we've tapped the
canteen. So " here's to you unt your vam'-
lies; unt may they live long unt prosper."

CHAPTER IV.

"Ef I lived in a groiin' hog hole, I'd figlit for it."

(A Patriot.)

JT[IIE rain and fog shut off the fine views
_ from Mount Sterling, so that the reader
is spared any description of them. Upon the
high peaks above the gap we could catch
glimpses of spruces and firs. These conifers
belong to the latitude of Canada, and ai*e
found here at altitudes of 5,000 and (),00()
feet respectively. The fir yields balsam in
what are called "balsam blisters" on the
trunk. But for these " blisters " the inexpe-
rienced eye could scarcely tell the fir from
the spruce. In grasshopper season these
sunnnits are frequented by the plieasant and
wild turkey; but generally they are left to
the eagle and the raven. The soil is fertile,
but too cold to produce anything valuable
except grasses and the hellebore. The con-
tinual condensation supplies numerous cold

(183)

184 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

springs and provides a trout stream for every
little vale.

The region we are about to enter, and that
to the west and south of us, is the wildest,
most interesting, and least visited of all the
mountainous country east of the Mississippi.
One or two peaks of the Black in the Blue
Kidge, two hundred miles east and north,
are perhaps higher than any hereabout; but
for number of high peaks, vastness of moun-
tain masses, wildness and grandeur this re-
gion excels.

In the beauty of its streams, such as the
Big and Little Pigeon, the Little Tennessee,
the Cataloochee, the Tuskeseegee, the Ocona-
Luftee, and the Socoah and Jonathan's Creek,
it far surpasses any region I have ever vis-
ited. Li cultivated lands, broad valleys, and
level reaches it is surpassed by the valleys
of the ]N^ola Chuckee, but the pasturage here
is the finest I have ever seen. The owners
of these wild lands may fence them, pay
taxes, and "range " their own cattle thereon,
but any citizen may graze lands unfenced,
rent free. The mineral and timber resources

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 185

are first rate and both comparatively un-
touched. Iron, silver, gold, lead, gra[)lnte,
g*i"anite, and many other minerals are found in
workable quantities; and mineral and timber
agents and capitalists seeking investments
are beginning to *' prospect.^'

Wet and dripping from a passing shower,
the Wagonauts waited in "Starling Gap"
while Aquarius and Frank hauled Jim up
the steep slope. Getting in and lighting our
pipes, we hailed the man on the fence — the
only native we've met who was on the fence
— the natives are generally very positive.
He was a good man — a man to tie to— he'd
been to get a basket of apples for his mother-
in-law. Panier took advantage of the " gap,"
separating him from his domestic establish-
ment to indulge in profane jests upon the
mother-in-law, which I have severely sup-
pressed, although he has since furnished them
to me carefully written out, but meanly cred-
ited to Blanc, whom I'm not going to get
into trouble.

The three miles down the mountain to
Lizard Spring were soon made, and here we

186 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

halted for luncheon and respects to the can-
teen. Making another ascent, we descended
into the valley of the Cataloochee and stopped
for the night at Fayette Pahner's. The Cat-
aloochee is a noted and a beautiful trout
stream. This Dolly Yarden, dainty minnow,
as Blanc scornfully calls him, seeks the i)ure
cold waters of the higher streams after the
month of June, wdiere the water is overarched
with spruce, ])ine, and laurel and kept cold,
where huckleberries come dancing down the
waves and the flies are sweet and cool. It
was too late for fly Ashing, and we had in
native parlance to "sink for 'em." We'd
soon a fine string apiece, and Pisces was set
to cleaning the catch while I donned my
white apron and got out the olive oil. Mind-
ful of my last experience of mountain cook-
ing of trout, I entrusted myself with the cu-
linary operations.

The pompano stands next to the trout in
delicacy of flavor and firmness of flesh; but
the speckled trout, born in the clouds, nur-
tured in the mists — "children of the mist" —
whose home is in the coldest and purest

THE WAaOXAUTS ABROAD. 18'

brooks, whose dainty food is the finest berries
and tlie delicate^t flies and moths, is the
finest of all the fish. The epicure scorns
sance with its dainty pink llesh, nielling- like
butter in the moutli.

J)hinc, who came out "loaded for bar,"
came in not entirely gameless, and pcihaps
saved two valuable lives by shoot iuu* a iieu-
nine copperhead. This ser[)ent abouuds iu
these valleys. AVhile not so venomous as the
rattlesnake, it makes up for venom in vii;or
of attack and the certainty of its aim. J
have known many people bitten by both ro]i-
tiles, but T have never known death to result
from the bite of either. With two keg-s of
snake antidote, we felt snake-proof. AVeary
with clambering over rocks, and drowsy
from the efi'ects of our drenching, we tapped
the canteen, smoked one i)ipc of ravishing to-
bacco, and w^ere lulled to sleep by the mus-
ical mnrmurings of the briglit Cataloochee.
By morning Panier and I were oft' — np the
slopes of the Great Smoky, w^th bait and rods,
eacrer for a crreat catch; but the heaw rains
had so swollen the Cataloochee that our pros-

188 THE WAGOiS-AUTS ABROAD.

pect of sport had flicled. "We could not wait
for the uncertain clearing of the river, and
Ferguson was ordered to take the road.

Upon a high clearing on the divide be-
tween Cataloochee and Jonathan's Creek we
met a divinely ugly native, with a strong but
pleasant face, a keen eye, eyebrows like a
moustache, and a gennine moustache sprout-
ing upon the end of his huge red nose.

" You-uns from South Calliner? " he hailed,
as we drove up.

"JN'ashville, Tennessee."

"Min'rals er timber?" he asked.

Every party of tourists is subjected to rig-
id scrutiny, and suspected of being prospect-
ors for minerals or timber, or United States
officers ferreting out moonshiners. I have
deemed it unnecessary to mention my con-
nection with the government; for, while I
would scorn to use information gathered
while on a pleasure tour, it might prove dan-
gerous to be suspected. The natives are as
jealous of mine and timber hunters as of
those who interfere with their right to make
their own fire-water.

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 189

" They alius carries fishing tackle, ' he
said, when we showed him our sporling out-
fit, lie didn't believe a word we said. " Tlie
^revenues ' alius does that," he said. At last
he said he'd like to show us some " speci-
ments " he'd gathered. They were line spec-
imens of iron pyrites, which we assured him
mio'ht have a future value.

The mountain man is always between the
horns of a dreadful dilemma, fearing that
some prospector may "bag" a good tiling
" onbeknowns " to the native; or that he may
himself fail to " bag " a good thing by neg-
lecting to use deftly the superior knowledge
of the prospecting outsider.

Crossing the clearing, we stopped to enjoy
the fine views. The sun was shining- brio-ht-
ly; the few floating clouds hung high in the
heavens, and a dark rain cloud clinging to
the highest peaks of the Great Smoky in our
r(uir rather enhanced than marred the pros-
pect. To our left rear lay the lofty peak of
Mount Sterling. In the w^est, mountain mass
lay piled upon mountain mass, above Avhich
towered (^uoi-Ahna-Catoosa, serene in the

190 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

clear sunlight, and heavily timbered down
into the basin at its foot.

On the other side the view lies almost ap-
palling in its grandeur of infinite distances,
mountain masses, broad basins, long, ti-ongh-
like valleys, farms and fields, high up on
mountain slopes, as far as the eye can reach,
to the dim, misty crests of far ranges in
Georgia and South Carolina. At our feet
lies the pretty vale of Jonathan's Creek, dot-
ted with farmhouses and checkered with field
and woodland, with here and there the curl-
ing smoke of human habitations, up to the
thick forests upon the slopes and summits of
Socoah, up which the eye wanders to the
Gap, through which our road will carry us
to-morrow, into the Indian country.

Southward Wavnesville nestles in a broad
plain, surrounded by its amphitheatrical
mountain ranges. Further around to the
east yawn the canyons of the French Broad,
lying darksome in the shadows of Paint
Mountain, near Warm Springs. In the far
distance to the southeast towers Pisgah
Peak, one of the tallest of the Appalachian

THE AYAGONAUTS ABROAD. 191

system. East, a little southerly, stand the
great mountains about Asheville. This is
the furthest, wildest, and every way finest
mountain view we have had.

While w^e wei-e gazing, our native gave us
necessary information. Something brought
up the war. " Were you in it? " I said.

"Stranger, I were," he replied, with a hurt
expression.

If he looked hurt by an implied doubt as
to whether he'd been to the big wars that
make ambition virtue, his expression was
both hurt and wrathful when I asked him
which side he was on.

" Ef I lived in a groun' hog hole, I'd fight
fur it," he replied.

"Where did you serve? " asked Bhuic.

" I were with Kansom, in ole Virginny,"
he answered, with modest pride.

" Then you saw some fighting. Get
hurt?" asked Blanc.

"Half this hand," he said, holding \\\) a
maimed hand. "I were thar nigh to the
eend — in the hospital at Petersburg. I were
shot purty nigh the last, an' bar'ly git out

192 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

afore the Yankee line lapped round our boys
ez we got out'n Petersburg."

His picturestjue and finely expressed " Ef
I lived in a groun' hog hole, I'd fight for it"
told the Avhole duty of a man to the people
he lives with and to the conntry he lives in.
" Let's take a bumper to Ransom and the tar-
heels," said Panier, drawing out the canteen.
^^ Stranger, I reckon yon know this kind of
bottle?"

The veteran's eye gleamed. " Got one like
'er down home," said he. '^ Got one of 'em
at Big Bethel, and carried her clean through
— regular Yankee cantlet. A Yankee bul-
let give her a cut at the Wilderness, an' a
piece o' shell dinted her some at Petersburg,
when we fit at the ^ crater; ' but I've got her
her yit."

He ponred ont a modest six fingers, gazed
afar, as if memory were lit np with battle
heights, flaming crests of well-charged hills
and cherished recollections of camp, field, and
comrade; and then, with a start and a long
breath, he said: ^^"Well, here's to you-nns
and yonrn. AYe done nothin' to be ashamed

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 193

of. We han't done nothin' after all; but
we worried 'em. I han't got nothin' agin
nobody; I han't got nothin' to take back,
nuther.''

The Confederacy had no better troops than
these same "Tar-heels," who walked on their
toes to the front and stuck their tarred heels
into the ground on their retreat. Nothing
was more enjoyed than our meeting with this
simple-minded veteran, whose strong face
and rude but eloquent talk showed plain
sense and magnanimity.

With a hearty shake of the hand at parting,
we turned down the slope toward Jonathan's
Creek. At a store and a mill by the way we
found about thirty natives assembled to hear
a trial for assault and battery. The defend-
ant had escaped, and Hamlet was being
played in Hamlet's absence. A native un-
fortunately let it out that a meeting of Con-
federate veterans was to be held on the heels
of the trial, and we had much trouble getting
Blanc to forego this opportunity to make a
speech. Blanc is ntterly lacking in sports-
manlike pride. He disgraced us here by
13

194 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. '

buying from an urchin a fine string of trout, ;
caught in Jonathan's Creek. j
Where the sign board read, " Waynesville, i
5 miles/' we turned up the creek, and came i
to a new white church and schoolhouse. It j
is a good traveling rule to be the more cir- i
cumspect the further you go from home. I
Panier wanted to take possession, but Blanc i
and I went to a neighboring house and asked ''
for the key. The old man was obdurate.
My statement that we were Christian gentle-
men from Nashville went for naught. I in- |
quired about the denomination of the church, '
determined to w^ork Blanc's pious face for all '
it was worth as a deacon or ruling elder. It !
was a union church of all Christians. I was \
puzzled. ''What is your persuasion?" I
asked.

The old man was a Bajitist. i

"Do you think that Christ would haye !

turned off* a stranger with a horse that was j

born tired?" I asked. i

" They hold me responsible," he rejilied. j

"Would any of the disci2)les — even Judas |

— have turned three weary travelers, with a i

THE WAGONAUT8 AliKOAl). 195

worn-out horse and far from home, out into
all out-doors, with a storm brewing? denied
them shelter, and driven them out into the
cold world? "

A happy thought struck me. " By the
way, stranger, do Baptists ever take a little
for their stomachs' sake and their often in-
firmities?"

The pious disciple cast out a chew of to-
bacco as big as a dumpling, and made a long
and minute inquiry into the astronomy of the
waning moon. As the last gurgle died on
the ear I added: ^' Do you remember the
blsesed promise of the Scriptures: ' Inasmuch
as ye did it unto one of these, ye did it unto

me."

" I reckon I'll haf to let you in," said he.

Our camping at Jonathan's church [)erliaps
saved some child's life. Serpentarius was
removing a plank which lay in the way of
the wagon, when Blanc, with his keen eye
for snakes, and remarkable capacity for ada[)t-
ing it to frequent calls for the canteen, spied
a copperhead coiled and ready for business,
and blew him to Orcus. Blanc is largely

196 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. i

— : — — . i

ahead on snakes, this being his fourth cop- |

perhead, besides five water moccasins. He 1

sees more snakes than the rest of the Wagon- '

aiits, and hence kills more. ^

This is a lovely valley, cut centrally by a |

beautiful stream. The fertile soil is well cul- j

tivated and the vale thickly settled and dot- ;

ted with neat, comfortable houses — double i

log' and frame; and, remote as are these wilds, ;

many people of education, thought, and of i

some travel and cultivation, dwell here, and j

would not live elsewhere if the world were ;

given them. The fences are good, living is i

cheap, and the people live well — if plenty is '

well. Their cooking is execrable. It would •
make Delmonico weep, and Brillat-Savarin

commit suicide. :

We have not encountered the mean log j

and mud hovel of many parts of iS^orth Car- ;

olina, with daubed chimney, ash hoppei*, pig l

pen, three-gourd martin box on a pole, and •

big wash kettle with "battlin' stick," and !
dozens of tow-headed children, and an old
woman in front dipping snuff.

Kupferkopf could scarcely be induced to I

THE WAaON^AUTS ABROAD. 197

feed, after the copperhead incident. I cooked
onr disgraceful string of purchased trout,
Panier made coffee, and Bhmc cut and spread
the spruce boughs and ferns in the churcli.
After a delicious supper and a pipeful of B.
F. Gravely, we turned the sacred edifice into
a dormitory, and slept soundly to the tuneful
voices of Jonathan's Creek, except that we
were once aroused by Blanc's visions of
snakes and calling for the canteen of anti-
dote; and once again by Panier's complain-
ing of jabl)erwocks in the chimney and of a
class of schoolgirl fleas engaged in calistlien-
ic exercises down the small of his back.

After a delightful ])lunge in the creek and
a gorgeous breakfast, we swept and cleaned
up the church for Sunday school, and set out
for Socoah Gap and Quail a Reservation. Ot-
o-no os-te-nau-lee us-ke-baw, ve-ra-ci-us ta-
le-stori Pam-pc is reserved for the next
chapter.

CIIAPTEE y.

In the afternoon tliey came into a land
Where it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon,
And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream

Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

( Tennyson. )

(TOCO AH is a high mountain range, with a

Kj broad low gap, throngh w^hich onr road

runs into sleepy, Rip- Van-Winkle Qualla

Reservation. The road winds by the side of

Jonathan's Creek, up one of the wildest gorges

I have ever steered a wheeled conveyance

through. Sometimes it is a broad, moist,

cool vale, with slight incline, covered with

dense forests of all kinds of trees, w^ith trunks

all moss-covered in that moist air. Again it

is a deep, rocky gorge, where the road winds

through dense laurel thickets, beneath whose

dark shadows the creek roars and foams with

never a glimpse of the sun even at noonday.

(198)

THE WAGONAUT8 ABROAD. 199

The soil is very fertile and vegetation Inxn-
riant, with fine pasturage. These goi-ges —
the haunts of wolves, bears, and wild cats — run
up to the heights of Socoah, to the eye one
mass of laurel, hemlock, and ivy, contrasted
with gray, lichen-covered granites, with alter-
nately clear-sweeping and white-foaining
waters, gleaming through the green and the
gray.

The road was but one degree removed from
the impracticable. At one point it required
work, and I turned myself into a sapper and
miner; and, for my pains, had my foot rolled
upon and bruised by a huge rock. 'No chance
to ride, pain or no pain. It required the
united efforts of our party, with Xenophon
leading the team, to lift Jim and the wagon
up the steep, rocky way, assisted by a kindly
mountaineer. At last one steep incline,
through thickets of impervious laurel, and we
are in Socoah Gap, on the line of (^ualhi
Cherokee Reservation. After a half hour of
water cure below a cold spring. Dr. Blanc
applied a moist tobacco leaf to my wounds;
so that I suffered but little more with it, al-

200 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

though it was already badly swollen and black
from e:Ktravasated blood. Tobacco applied
in time is almost a preventive of tetanus
from rusty iron wounds and curative of all
bruises.

Here, upon the edge of Qualla, in Socoah
Gap, looking down upon the wigwams of the
red man, and contemplating the land of the
aborigines, avc expected to see some wild sav-
age burst with war whoop and tomahawk out
of the forest. Instead of that, a well-dressed
gentleman rode up to the cattle fence, which
encloses a few acres of pasture in the Gap,
and saluted in moderate English. His skin
was red, but otherwise he was quite modern
and civil. He even rejoiced in a plain IN^orth
Carolina title, and was known as Col. James
Hornblower, although generally called for
short Jim Hornblower. Jim is a well to do
Cherokee, who lives three miles down the
Socoah from the Gap. I was moved to inter-
view Col. Hornblower on the subject of corn
for our team. At first he had no corn ; then
he couldn't sell any.

In 1830, Col. Drowning Bear, a good In-

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 201

dian, saw that fire water was shipping his
people off to the happy hunting grounds.
He began a temperance movement which
speedily worked a great refoi-m and cured the
whole tribe of bibulation. The authentic
history of ^North Carolina says that this i-e-
form has continued down to this day. I have
a great respect for history. With a scien-
tific view and certain base notions concern-
ing corn, I drew out the canteen and care-
lessly remarked: " Ili-po-no lenee ke-na-pe
so-to-naus-tee, Col. Ilornblower." Whether
it was the takiug military title, the smiling,
inviting appearance of the canteen, or the
pleasure of finding a paleface who could
speak good Cherokee, I don't know. Any
way Col. James Ilornblower embraced the
canteen and looked up at the sun to see what
time it was, shading his eyes with the can-
teen. ''Six bells. Colonel," I said; ''go
ahead." He went ahead on both engines.
" O-co-co ex-haustee. Col. Hornblower," I
said; " Go-to-no-mo-stop." Still he gazed
at the sun. "Pete — Bob — Jack," I ex-
claimed, and I set it down in my notebook

202 THE wago:n^auts abkoad.

that the reform of Mr. Drowning Bear had
not lasted down to these modern times, or at
least had not embraced Col. James Horn-
blower.

When the red man seemed to be duly mel-
lowed, I delicately mentioned the subject of
corn in good Cherokee: " So-me maize, In-
di-an corn, heap selle, big chief Hornblower."
" Ugh, ugh, come down right way — big heap
bushel, seventy-five cents." I thought it
was fixed, but the paleface isn't always, by
a canteenful, as smart as he thinks himself,
when he's dealing with the wily red man.

The views from Socoah are fine, but inter-
rupted by timber. The valleys of the Indian
country lie below us in the early light —

With serial softness clad

And beautiful with morning's purple beams.

Why is it that so few poets have sung the
beauties of mountain scenery? Is it because
they are remote from human life, which, after
all, is the poet's highest theme? Are the
thoughts that arise, the sentiments that swell
in the soul, too vast for utterance by souls
that know best how inadequate is all expres-

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 203

sion? Old ocean has been sung in all her
moods. Byron has touched the thunder
storms of Jura in lines as beautiful as the
storm. In Manfred, in close connection with
human sentiment and action, he has depicted
briefly the glories of Alpine scener3^ Words-
worth is almost the only poet who has sung in
continued strain the mountains and their vary-
ing moods. He sings as if they had spoken to
him and he had understood. They must speak
some message to all Avell-attuned souls.

The Wagonauts are out enjoying a quiet
tourist life, with jest and song and easy phi-
losophy and thorough, but not profound, en-
joyment of beauty. To drink the draught
of nature to the depths one must go, as Scott
says, to view aright fair Melrose, " go alone,

the while."

One may stand alone on yonder blue dome,
or upon the " bald, blear skull " of yonder
high-placed crag, with no sound save the
rippling of the trickling rill, as it starts down
the mountain side on its way to the eternal
sea, or the whisperings of the winds — the
lenes sussurri — as it speaks to the firs and

204 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

spruces — spirit sounds, voices of the moun-
tain— far from the reach of all human sounds
of kindred men, above all the sounds of
creatures and things ruled by man — neigh
of horse, bleat of lambs, low of heifer, crow
of cock, chirp of familiar bird or insect — and
feel, like Manfred, face to face, with solemn,
silent nature; or, like the "Wanderer," in
the "Excursion," when that dark mountain
spirit, the man-shunning raven, comes hoarse-
ly croaking and flapping his black Plutonian
wings athwart the scene:

If the solitary nightingale be mute;
And the soft woodlark here did never channt
Her vespers, nature fails not to provide
Impulse and utterance. The whispering air
Sends inspiration from the shadow}^ heights
And blind recesses of the caverned rocks;
The little rills and caverns numberless,
Inaudible by daylight, blend their notes
With the loud streams; and after, at the hour
When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard.
Within the circle of their fabric huge,
One voice — the solitary raven, flying
Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome.
Unseen, perchance above all power of sight—
An iron knell.

THE WAGONAUT8 ABROAD. 205

I confess to a late-growii ibiidness ioi- a
sort of ivijc and easy comrade communing
with nature; but there are some "secret,
sweet, and precious" delights — some ju'o-
found and ravishing mysteries, wliieli ma}
not be shared, Avhich will only imj)art a fee-
joy "due to some single soul." J)ut one
worshipper at a time may be initiated within
nature's inmost shrines.

Setting out with the promise of Col. James
Ilornblower to meet ns at his wigwam below,
we began the steep descent of Socoah.
" Alas, poor Lo," I thought as I gazed npon
these sterile, thinly clad lands, with grim
irony bestowed upon these aborigines, for
services rendered the early settlers, and u])on
the fertile paleface lands upon the other side
of Socoah Gap, "begets the worst of every
bargain." It's always : " I'll take the turkey
and you take the crow; or3^ou take the crow
and I'll take the turkey," and " LTgh! pale-
face never say turkey to Injun onct."

Our road runs steeply down Socoah C^reek,
which has already become a considerable
stream as it comes down from the upper i)eaks

206 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

of the Socoab. A mile and a half down the
broad stream roars, foaming down a deep,
rocky canyon, arched with laurels, fringed
with ivies, and overhung with dark hemlock
boughs, wet and sparkling Avith continual
spray. The gorge is lined with vast broken,
jagged, craggy cliffs, and the creek makes its
toilsome way over and among huge granites
of many tons' weight, piled in wild confusion
in its channel.

At a turn in the road Ave come upon the
magnificent Socoah Falls. The bold crystal
stream dashes, with a long sweep, twenty
feet down a smooth incline, out of a dark
covert of green boughs into the sunlight,
falling checkered throngh sparse overhang-
ing boughs, and pauses on the brink for the
first wdld leap for liberty, "frenetic to be
free." Foaming and boiling on the edge of

a deep chasm.

Between walls
Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass,

it plunges down twenty feet into a bubbling
cauldron; gathers strength and, a few feet
farther on, leaps into the abyss below —

THE WAGONAUTS ABllOAD. 207

Through wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling, a slumberous sheet of foam below.

Thence out of the sunlight and out of its
swirling basin it glides, sending up thin
clouds of steamy spray, touched Ijy the slant
morning sunbeams to all the rainbow hues,
and goes gliding into the deep shadows of
dark granites and darker spruce boughs, to
roll and tumble and fret and fume, ovei-, un-
der, around, and over great boulders, here and
there disclosing, through green boughs, rav-
ishing views of nature's wild magnificence.

Here, in the Indian country, one may im-
agine some dusky Alfriata, spirit of some
blue Juniata, wooed by dusky lover, in unison
with the swelling notes of this wildly and
weirdly tuneful waterfall — forest notes, suit-
ed to nature's wildest mood — where civilized
lovers would seek purling brooks and softer
music.

According to the only tradition I have
found lingering here, the last battle fought
by the Cherokees of this region was fought
here in Socoah Gap. Strangely this was a
conflict between rival Cherokees. Of wars

(208)

SOCOAH FALLS.

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 209

with the paleface tliey have no tradition left.
A little learning has banished tradition and
oral transmission. The name of John Sevier
has been forgot, while the names of rival In-
dian heroes of a far distant day still linger in
shadowy form. It was near here, if not here,
that '^^ola Chuckee Jack" burst into the
Indian country, spread death, ruin, and dis-
may, and escaped by another route when his
way was blocked by all but one tall peak.
The tradition of the last fight runs that a
band of Cherokees from the coast came by
Socoah, seeking the West. They were met
in this gap, ambuscaded near the falls, and
but one spared, to be sent disgracefully back
to tell his tribe to send more men, and no
more squaws.

Reaching the comfortable home and well-
tilled farm of Jim Ilornblower, we waited for
that wily red man, whom ^ye had seen fifty
yards behind us not a half mile back. James
came not. Dusky children apj)eared at the
doors, and then vanished. We invaded Jim's
wigwam. l^o Jim, no squaw, no papoose.

We knocked and yelled. 'No reply, no corn.
14

210 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

Sadly, wiser, and with profounder knowledge
of the red man, we w^ent on.

The sociable paleface builds his cabin
near the road; the solitary red man, wrapped
in the mantle of his own solitude and silence,
builds the road as far from all springs as he
can, and then builds his house by the spring.
As we went on down the valley a wild, shrill
halloo came from behind, and was caught up
and went reechoino- down the valley before
us. Strange! The houses Avere all closed.
A deathlike stillness reigned. No answer.
Inhospitable! Scipio Africanus expresses
himself as favorable to an early retreat; but
we came to see the Indians, and we're going
through somehow. We know that the great
Father's paleface children are as safe here as
at their own firesides. It is merely Indian
surliness and suspicion. Their white border-
ers have told us, over on the other side of the
line, that there is not a country on earth freer
from violence, theft, or crime. The fields are
filled with oats in neat stacks, and hay in
cocks. The lands a mile or so below the
summit of the Gap are very fertile, and the

THE WAGOXAUTS ABllOAD. 211

houses and fences are good. The agriculture
is generally as good as that of the white
mountaineers who dwell skirting the reserva-
tion. We meet a party of bucks and s([ua\vs
going to Warm S[)rings to })lay a game ol"
ball. The squaws — Der Frwaeii Zn.stajtd
ist heklagensivertli — carry the burdens,
bats, bows and arrows. They beg tobacco
and accept whisky, and tell us we can get
corn — heap, plenty corn — but Ave don't, and
we can't.

At last we come to a house by the road-
side— double-log, well-built, with long front
porch. An old Bashi-Bazouk, with tremen-
dous moustache and the general ai)pearance
of a Turk, bnshy, white eyebrows and eagle
eye, sat upon the floor, surrounded by Ibiu"
squaws. We hailed him: ''Bashi-Bazouk,
have you any corn?"

"Ugh! ngh!"

"Colonel, sell us a bushel; horse about to
drop."

" Got no corn."

The old reprobate! One of the squaws
was all the time pointing to her mouth, inti-

212 THE WAG^ONAUTS ABROAD.

mating that they needed the corn to eat.
They eyed us curiously, suspiciously — not
hostilely. The squaws and papooses spoke
Cherokee to one another, and all the while
they could speak as good English as we
could.

The red devils would drink our whisky,
chew our tobacco, and make any sort of
promise of corn from the next house. From
the only white storekeeper dw^elling among
them we afterward learned that if they were
starving and had an abundance to sell, and
were anxious to sell, they wouldn't sell a
grain of corn to a stranger. Finally we
stopped, dug up the hatchet, danced a Avar
dance, smoked a war pipe, poured a libation
out of the keg, and passed a resolution :

Resolved, That Lo lovetli not his paleface brother;
that Lo deserves his sad fate; that sympathy with Lo
is misplaced and mawkish; that, after all the Great
Father has done for Lo during the past two hundred
years, Lo is an ingrate; that Lo has never been hit a
lick amiss; that we hope somebody will hit Lo again;
that there is no good Indian but a dead Indian.

Then, in desperation, Panier and I resolved

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 213

to riskj if need be to sacrifice, Blanc to the
general weal. The vote stood: AlHrmative:
Kamp, 10; Panier, 2; Xerxes, 1; Frank, 9-10;
Jim, 1-10. Total, M votes. Negative : ]>lanc,
1. Carried, nem. con, Mnch against his will,
Panier and I painted Blanc a fine yellow with
pigment ochre from onr canvased beef, blacked
his eyebrows with powder, and hid his anri-
comous poll beneath a slouch hat. He was
a noble red man when we got through with
him and admonished him: " Go, Young-man-
afraid-his-horse- will-die, get us corn, if you
have to dig up the hatchet, raise the war
whoop, scalp and slay."

"We provided him with wampum for peace-
ful barter, and saw him off. With dismal
face Blanc laid down the fence, and steered
himself through the gap to a distant cabin
which seemed to promise maize. After
awaiting for many minutes the result of our
desperate expedient, we heard a wild war
whoop, a trampling as if a herd of buftalo had
been stampeded, a tearing noise and a rend-
ing- asunder of bushes, and Blanc burst upon
our astonished gaze, making 2:10 out of the

214 THE WAGOJS^AUTS ABROAD.

laurel into the open ground. He looked like
a pair of shears, opened to full stretch, as his
legs encompassed at one bound a bit of
open ground. His fiery red head gleamed
upon the view for a moment like a meteor or
a red fire beacon or a will-o'-the-wisp, as if

The sun had sent him, like a ray,

To say that be was coming up that way.

And he plunged into the thicket again like
an extinguished farthing-dip. Behind him
came four bucks, tomahawks and scalping
knives in hand, in full cry, war whoop and
all, followed by five squaws and fourteen of
the younger fry, all head up, opening on
Blanc's trail. Panier and I took a tree apiece,
sending Picketus Africanus out to scout.
Panier had a shotgun and two pistols; I was
armed witli two thirty-eights, with the
schnicker schnee stuck in my l)elt.

In a moment Blanc rushed out of the thick-
et again, trailing after him about two hun-
dred yards of muscadine vines and other
climbing plants whose botanical character I
didn't have time to observe, his clothes torn,
his neck and hands scratched by briers and

BLANC ON THE WARPATH.

(2ir,)

216 THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD.

brambles, the perspiration streaking the yel-
low ochre and powder stains down his face in
rare and beautiful combinations; so that his
*' human face divine" looked like a cross-
barred gridiron or a miniature of the Madrid
Escurial, while his fiery eyes ghared over the
rubiginous point of his rubicund nose. His
skullcap Avas off, and his knotted and com-
bined locks stood on end, each particular hair
a burning and a shining light.

''Yv^here's the corn?" I said calmly, deter-
mined to soothe the distracted nerves of the
Wagonauts, and to put on a bold front before
the arrival of the enemy.

^'Corn, h— 11!" he shouted, ^^.ook at
those autochthonal, aboriginal, ferro-rubigi-
nous devils." Blanc swears fearfully classic
and dreadfully polyglot oaths when he's ex-
cited.

As the redskins burst out of the laurel,
with war Avhoop, tomahawk, and scalping
knife, we covered them with our guns. They
slow^ed down, paused, halted, grew silent.
Conticuere omnes.

"Wait for the word," I whispered, as

THE wago:n^auts abroad. 217

calmly as if I'd been buttering a muffin, be-
ginning coolly to sharpen the fall schnicker-
schnee upon the trunk of a great scaly bark
hickory tree, striking fire at every stroke,
feeling the edge, glancing calmly at the sharp
edge and at the astonished redskins, and
seeming to make a mental note of the num-
ber and character of the scalps that would
adorn my wampum belt and delight the war-
like souls of our happy papooses when we
returned home to our wigwams from the war-
path.

I never felt more bloodthirsty. Scalpetus
Africanus now came in from a successful
scout, and retired to the rear. Blanc here
disgraced himself by wanting to go off and
establish a hospital and put up a yellow flag
as the surgeon of the Wagonauts.

I could see the light of battle and the Ber-
serker rage of his Teutonic ancestors blazing
in the bloodshot eye of Panier. I gave the
enemy a significant glance, and brought the
schnicker-schnee one more wipe down the
great trunk of the scaly bark. It gave out a
rino; that resounded far up and down the sides

218 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

of old Socoah, and struck out a blaze of wild
fire that illumined the forests far and near.
The redskins stole off with a disappointed
" Ugh! ugh! " I have observed that all w^ell-
regulated Indians "Ugh! ugh!" in Cooper's
and other border novels.

The remaining chapters of this part of my
thrilling narrative may be found continued in
the New YorJc Ledger,

The corn problem was really serious. It
isn't right to steal, but we made up our minds
that we were going to have oats or corn.

It is the holy Sabbath day. We come now
to a wild gorge, tributary to the Socoah,
which sparkles with promise of trout. A
friendly Indian, before whose eyes we waved
the canteen, told us that it contained " heap
trout." It being six bells, we tied up on ac-
count of the holy Sabbath, merciful to our
beasts, and needing Sabbatic rest ourselves.
Then we didn't wet a line, or have two hours
of good fly fishing up three miles of creek,
rich in the speckled beauties; or catch fifty
trout, and regale ourselves with a regal meal,
cooked by a fire kindled in an old hickory

THE WAaONAUTS ABROAD. 219

stump. I've no doubt but that we could
have done it if it hadn't been Sunday. As it
was Sunday, w^e didn't wet a line. Honest.

Moving on from our resting place, we began
to meet more and more Indians in Sunday
dress, the squaws with a very decided fancy for
red, the bucks in ordinary store clothes, and
very good clothes, too. Panier and Blanc
bitterly complained of me that I exchanged
my sombre tie for a cravat of fiery red, as
we entered the reservation. It made them
deeply envious to see tlie young squaws of
female persuasion gaze at me with admiring
eyes.

We stopped and talked to most of the red-
skins, the men usually talking as a preface
to requests for tobacco, and then shutting u[)
like clams and relapsing into Cherokee.
The young men were reticent, except when
the canteen was brought out. The squaws af-
fected to be ignorant of English, and wouldn't
talk at all. Not even my flaming necktie
would draw them out. I think this was on
account of Blanc and Panier, for they gen-
erally gazed at me with mute admiration.

220 THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD.

The natives had been to service, held by Da-
vid Crow, a native preacher.

At last we came to about fifty braves at a
creek crossing, engaged in conversation be-
fore separating for their homes. As they
stood jal)bering Cherokee by the roadside, I
addressed one portly fellow, who looked like a
man in authority. He told us that corn was
scarce, but that oats were abundant, and we
should have feed. He directed a young buck
to go with us, and furnish oats. Our taciturn
friend tapped the canteen vigorously, and final-
ly brought us to both oats and corn. It was
time, for Jim lay down at this point and de-
clined to make further eftbrt; so that we had
to send Jehu Africanus on Frank to brina'
back the corn. He left us with a look which
said plainly: '^ When you see me again, this
scalp lock of mine will be dangling at some
wild brave's wampum belt." Ootsie-tootsie
sent back the corn and oats, and came him-
self to see how James and the canteen were
getting on.

Taking advantage of our rest to plunge
into the creek, we were surprised by a bevy

THE AVAGONAUT8 ABROAD. 221

of dusky maidoiis; but they didn't seem to
be at all surprised.

After feeding and rest we were able to
move on over the round, well-timbered hills
of the beautiful Ocona-Luftee, a shallow,
but broad, clear, lovely stream, far more
beautiful than the lamed ''blue Juniata" of
Campbell. Our crossing* is in full view of
Yellow Hills, the capital of Qualla Keserva-
tion, a vile American name substituted for
the beautiful Indian name of Qualla. It is
a picturesque village, set in amongst high
hills, with neat cottages and large, convenient
school buildings and store houses extended
along the banks of the Ocona-Luftee. The
large white house of the Superintendent sits
upon a lovely knoll, where the United
States flag is flying. Further up and high-
er is the residence of the Chief of the Qual-
la branch of the Cherokee tribe. Col. ^. J.
Smith.

As we cross the river a long line of Indian
boys and girls files over a high foot log from
a Sunday jaunt upon the lofty hill overlook-
ing the village. As we draw near all faces

THE AVAGONAUTS ABROAD. 223 '

wear signs of growing cnltnrc, satisfaction,
and happiness.

I reserve for the next chapter some account
of tliis rarely visited, quaint, and curious l)it
of barbarism and slowly dissipating savagery,
set here in the midst of civilization — a niei'e
speck upon the vast country east of the ]Mis-
sissippi, a lost atom, so insignificant that few
people have ever heard or know that there is
a Cherokee settlement and a tribe dwelling
in JSTorth Carolina.

(224)

CHAPTER YT.

Lo, the poor Indian. (Pope.)

I WAS puzzled how to smuggle this chap-
ter in under my rule. The information is
valuable, but, perhaps, not useful. If it
were useful, the world would have to suffer.
Since it contains information it shall be cut
short. Brevity's the soul of wit, where util-
ity is the essence of stupidity. It's a crying
pity that the useful should have been in-
vented to make life not worth the living and
to fill the world with stupid people, so muddy
and dull of brain and so slow of foot that all
the good things, such as money and money's
worth, actually run over them on the road and
fill their pockets. The Greeks, pretty well
for their day, illustrated this with the story
of the slow tortoise winning the race over the
swift-footed hare — only the race should have
overtaken the tortoise, actually run over him

and forced him to win it, while the hare
15 (225)

(226)

CHIEF N.J. SMITH.

THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 227

should have "got left" by his own very
swiftness.

In 1806, when Georgia had determined that
her civilized Cherokees should leave their
happy homes, fertile fields, and fruitful or-
chards, where they were happier, peacefuller,
and, in some respects, more civilized than
their white neighbors, who coveted their
lands; and the national government had
adopted the removal policy, a division of
opinion occurred amongst the JSTorth Carolina
Cherokees. The State of North Carolina,
the justest of all the colonies in its dealings
with its aborigines, was willing, because of
services rendered the infant colony, to allow
them to stay. Part went and part stayed.
Qualla Reservation — known to the Indians
as Qualla Division, or the Eastern Division
of Indian Territory — was set apart for those
who stayed.

In 1830 the Qualla people had become be-
sotted, drunken, and vile, while the Indian
Territory branch, afar from the white man
and fire water, had prospered and grown rich
and civilized. Drowning Bear, a man of

228 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

power and character, devoted himself to the
reform of his people. It is true that most of
these Indians will drink when liqnor is of-
fered, but the reform was genuine and lasting.
Race sentiment and opinion is against liquors,
and the laws against selling liquors to Indians
are easily enforced.

The only really dark blot upon the pale-
face treatment of the aborigines was this de-
portation of the Georgia Cherokees, because
they alone of all the Indians had made gen-
uine and thorough progress in civilization.
The Cherokees seem to stand like the Cau-
casian among the races, the only Indian tribe
that has exhibited a fitness for anything but
to be made give place to those who will use
and not cumber the ground.

The war, which enlisted most of them in
the Confederate service, chiefly in Thomas's
Cherokee Legion, and among them Col. I^. J.
Smith, the present Chief, interrupted their
progress at Qualla. Thomas became insane
and lost most of the money belonging to the
Cherokees, and is now in the ^orth Carolina
Asylum for the Insane. Material losses were

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 229

r

of small consequence. War itself did not
disturb them, for no Federal force ever en-
tered the Cherokee country ; but the demor-
alization of war aifected them as it did others
and them i^artly by affecting others.

Some years ago the Qualla Cherokees were
willing to migrate, and in 1870 about two
hundred did go to Indian Territory. They
are now willing to remain here, although in-
dividuals from time to time seek the main
tribe, and there is at all times close commu-
nication, and singly and in small parties they
pass back and forth between Qualla and
Tahlequah.

Here they vote, exercise all rights of citi-
zenship, including having a slice of their
Reservation annually sold off by the State
for taxes. Whether they are citizens by pre-
scription or by statute I do not know.

Their position is peculiar. The Reserva-
tion is held in some sort of guardianship by
the United States, and the United States
Government exercises police powers, inter-
dicts sales of liquors, and provides for their
education. The right of eminent domain is

230 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

actually in the State of jSTorth Carolina.
The Cherokees elect a Council and a Chief
every four years. The lands are held in com-
mon, with a repartitioning every few years,
with provision for equitable allowance for
betterments and equalization of poor with
fertile lands. The white storekeeper told me
that they never engage in barter now. They j
buy and sell for cash or on credit, and pay
their debts. Many of them are thrifty and
accumulating.

Until within a few jears they voted the
Democratic ticket. During the Blaine and
Logan canvass, on account of Gen. Logan's
Indian descent, most of the Cherokee vote
was cast for the Republican ticket. Li the
election of 1888 they defeated the Demo-
cratic candidate for Congress, but he was a
man they would not vote for. The Democrats
charge this state of affairs upon the "Friends,"
who have sole charge of the education of the
Qualla Indians. The Friends have not done
well since, and they have been accused of
mismanagement. The Superintendent, es-
pecially, is accused by the Chief of stirring

THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 231

up dissensions. The Chief, IST. J. Smith, is a
staunch Democrat. During Mr. Cleveland's
administration an eifort was made to substi-
tute some other educational care, but the Indi-
ana Friends alone could be induced to under-
take the task, and they were finally reinstated.

In 1850 there were seven hundred Chero-
kees in Qualla, including a few Delawares
and Catawbas, divided into seven clans,
with seven towns. There are now about
twelve or fifteen hundred, and Yellow Hills
has been substituted for Qualla as the capital.

The mission is conducted on the farming-
out plan, the government pa3nng $12,000 a
year and furnishing the farm lands, the vine-
yards, gardens, and ample school buildings.
Yellow Hills is a beautiful village, neat, or-
derly, and picturesque. There is an air of so-
briety and order which indicates energy and
an executive brain. The satisfied, studious
look of the pupils, male and female, in about
equal proportions, is a touching spectacle
when one reflects upon the sad and yet inev-
itable history and lot of this unfortunate race
and considers that but a meagre remnant

232 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

seems now about to redeem the past, after the
crime of savagery has been expiated and the
race has ahnost expired under the inexorable
law of nature which makes climbing bitterly
hard and seeminf>'lv cruel.

That portion of the corn crop which we
carry in our kegs gives us no trouble; but
there is no end of trouble with that part of
last year's crop which we can't get. Jim is
unable to move beyond Yellow Hills. There
is no corn at the store, and the Superintendent
is out driving. Leaving Blanc absorbed in a
thrilling border novel, Panier and I visited
the school, where we saw about a hundred
well-formed, handsome Indian maidens,
mostly of decidedly mixed blood, although
we were told that only a small percentage
was of mixed blood. Three of those we
saw were of unmistakable African descent.
From the schoolhouse we went to call upon
the Chief, Col. ^. J. Smith, whom we found
talking on his front porch with a gentleman
to whom he introduced us as his son-in-law
from Indian Territory. The chief invited us
to be seated, and conversed affably for an

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 233

hour. He is a robust man of about fifty,
decidedly handsome in feature, with coal-
black ringlets pomaded down his shoul-
ders, keen black eyes, large, well-formed
nose and high cheek bones. Well dressed
in a neat business suit, he displayed a becom-
ing, but not offensive or excessive, self-ap-
preciation. Erect and commanding in form,
he must have been a striking figure in full
Confederate uniform on horseback, as he is
now as a dignified gentleman. He is not only
a gentleman in appearance but in manners, and
he writes a beautiful hand and spells perfectly.
Asked about the position of the Cherokees,
he said they were amenable to the civil and
criminal laws of ^orth Carolina. " But," he
added, "we generally try to settle all differ-
ences and disputes in Council and usually
succeed." Reticent and silent as the Indian
usually is, he admitted that the Council in
session is about as unruly a body as the Low^er
House of the American Congress. I spoke
of two Indian comrades, the Walking-Stick
brothers, with whom I had served during the
late war.

234 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

"O yes; Walking-Stick, Ot-on-a-iil-a-na-
us-tee. The older Ot-on-a-ul-a-na-us-tee is
dead, but I will have the other here in the
morning if you can stay."

The Walking-Stick Freres were not in de-
mand as messmates in my regiment; but a
drunken fellow, named Jake Doyle, who had
once been a brilliant young lawyer, who was
himself uncurrent as a messmate, took them
in and formed a mess. The redskins adorned
the back and sides of their tent with various
picture-writings of the battles they never
fought, descriptive of days and nights on the
warpath after Yankee scalps, which were
never scalped. Jake inscribed the front of

the tent with:

*' Jake Doyle and StaflP."

And reclined at ease and drank all the at-
tainable whiskey, Avhile his Walking-Stick
staff did all the woi*k.

Asking the chief about the absence of tra-
ditions among his people, he said he had won-
dered at it; but he could give no explanation
of the curious phenomenon. The story of
the last battle of the Cherokees at Socoah,

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 235

witli, as he thought, the Catawbas, ^vas the
only tradition of which he knew anything at
alL A gentleman from Washington was
then collecting what he could find concerning
their manners, customs, and folklore, and he
hoped that he might develop more than he
knew himself. Ours was a hasty tour, and
of course we attach no importance to what
we learned, more than in so far as it coincides
with what others have developed concerning
the curious loss of all facility in oral trans-
mission. A little learning and a desire for
more seems to be the death of traditional
learnino' and lei>'end.

We prefaced all inquiries about the wars
of the palefaces and the red men, with the
remark that the Cherokees were such mag-
nificent fighters that, if they had had our
arms, they might have been the victoi-s. In
every case this was received with a broad
smile upon fiices that seldom smile. Mr.
Smith smiled gi-acefully, bowed proudly, but
with a pleased expression, and said: "As we
were at home, I think the victory might have
remained with us."

236 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

The language of the Cherokees is musical
and the syllabifications easily caught. Such
words as O-to-na-ul-a-na-us-tee, Quo-Ahna-
Ca-to-os-a, 0-co-na-luf-tee, ^a-an-ta-ha-la,
Ca-ta-loo-chee, Tenassee, ^N^o-la-chuckee and
So-co-ah, pronounced Syoko and Tuck-e-
see-gee, spoken by them are very musical
and the words are easily caught. The lan-
guage is composed of but few words, and its
difficulties lie in its poverty. One word is
made to do duty that would be performed by
a hundred English words. For instance, the
word for a needle stands also for any sharp-
pointed instrument. If Tennessee, N^ola-
Chuckee, Watauga, Holston, Suwanee, and
such words were ever Cherokee, they have
forgotten them.

The Superintendent kindly supplied us
with corn, but was unable to furnish lodgings
on account of having a party of United
States engineers lodging with him. The
store-keeper found us an upper room at the
house of the paleface Avidow Avith whom he
was boarding. Our room was reached by a
tumble-down stair, leading up to a ramshackle

THE AVAGONAUTS ABROAD. 237

hincling in front of the door, upheld by four
posts. The widow's hundsome daughter was
arranging the room, while we were carrying
up our baggage. Blanc and I had made a
trip apiece and Panier was making the as-
cent, with a valise in one hand and the handle
of the keg in the other, when the heavy
strncture gave way and crashed down into
the garden. I was looking at Panier's un-
steady efforts to steer the keg to where he
could tap it '^ onbeknowns; " but how the
stair fell and how Panier made the door-sill,
neither he nor I can tell. I'm not surprised
that he's ignorant, for reasons I Avill not men-
tion. When the dust cleared away, the
stairs, the landing, the posts, Panier's valise,
in sections, and his store of cosmetics were
scattered amongst the cabbages, and Panier
was clinging to the doorway with one hand,
to the keg with the other, and to the bung-
hole Avith his teeth. It was a narrow escape
from almost certain death.

The widow rushed out, wringing her hands
— it was wash day — believing that her daugh-
ter had fallen. "We tried to relieve her mind

M

|?^--=.=^y^i^^^'i;^^^^^

:-^M:l-if \:^^r^^^^^^^kM»^^^:^^

PANIER'S CATASTROPHE.

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 239

by pointing to the imprisoned pair, looking
out at the door, like a pair of caged turtles,
she blushing like a peony and Panier con-
scious only of the keg's charms. With the
aid of Stepachus, Blanc and I soon restored
the fallen stairs and relieved the imprisoned
pair from their awkward imprisonment.

This accident really happened to Panier,
but he meanly came to me as the historiog-
rapher of the Wagonautic expedition and
said: ''That doesn't go." I protested that
I'd already half framed it. "If you don't
})romise to lay it on Blanc, I'll put it in the
Banner on you." Terrorized and under
duress, I made the promise, which I have faith-
fully redeemed above.

Pisces cleaned the remains of the string of
trout which we didn't catch in Socoali on
Sunday, and with the addition of basted
chicken, roasted eggs, and broiled bacon we
made a delightful meal, smoked the pipe of
peace, and retired to a sweet sleep on the
banks of Ocona-Luftee.

As the sun climbed over the high eastern
hills, we bade farewell to the lovely hill-en-

240 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

circled capital of Qualla, to the beautiful
Ocona-Luftee, to the fair widow aud her
fairer daughter, and took the high road over
the Tuckeeseegee divide, which narrowly
separates Tuckee-see-gee from Ocona-Luf-
tee, ■■-'

We have gone through the Qualla Chero-
kee Reservation, down its most j^opulous val-
ley, through its roughest and most picturesque
scenery. Coming through, by way of their
thoroughfare and by their churches, we have
seen most of the population in their Sunday
dress and holiday garb, men, women, and
children. We have seen their houses and
farms and visited them at home, most unwel-
come. We have talked to many of them, en-
joyed a new and a delightful experience,
sauced with some hardships for Jim and some
thrilling experiences for Blanc. The curl
has been taken out of the knotted and com-
bined locks of Scipio Africanus by abject
fear for his scalp, and Blanc's ruby locks
have paled to the hue of a farthing tallow
candle Avick.

In a superficial way we have learned some-

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 241

thing about Lo, and we think better of him
than when corn was scarcer. This Monday
morn, wx have seen the native at work — the
red man, actually at work — driving oxen,
reaping') mowing — one actually running a
reaper — shade of McCormack! We have
passed by and seen a road-working party.
Every Indian we have seen this morning has
been at work. They are in their work-a-day
attire, and even in that they are well dressed.
The ten miles to Charleston, now Bryson
City, are soon made, and we are once more in
a railroad town, which the Western J^orth
Carolina is rapidly connecting with Asheville
on one side and Marietta, Ga., on the other.
The town is full of prospectors, northern cap-
italists, mineralogists, and adventurers. A
fine hotel has been built, where we found
specimens of all sorts of minerals and timber.
A company of masons are cutting the fine
granites quarried here, with which cheap but
ambitious buildings are going up. Panier
wanted to camp here because we found at the
hotel black coffee, huckleberry i)ie, and

cracked walnuts with silver pickers.
16

242 THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD.

Crossing the Tuckeeseegee over a bridge,
we pushed on to the Little Tennessee, by the
^Nantehala road. We intended to spend a
week fishing in the JN^antehala, which is a
noted trout stream, but Jim has put an end
to our sport. We are told that we will have
good road down the Little Tennessee and
horrible travelling across mountains by the
Maryville route; but our informant always
comforts us when we tell him we've come by
Socoah Gap, with: "Well, ef you-uns is
been through the Shoko, you won't see no
more bad road."

Of our Aveary, winding way down the Lit-
tle Tennessee in the next chapter.

CHAPTEE VII.

That night a child might understand

The dev'l had business on his hand,

(Burns.)

O corn; a fagged horse. This country has
„\ a railroad; but corn is measured in a
"half bushel." The people say that the in-
flux of strangers and increased stock-raisiug
have used uj) last year's crop; but why don't
the store-keepers bring corn by rail, instead
of buying scant half-bushels, drawn out like
coin out of old stockiugs, by the necessity for
a few dimes of cash ?

Five miles short of Bushnell, on the rail-
way at the mouth of the Tuckee-see-gee, we
had to halt for Jim's convenience. He fell
down and declined to assume again the up-
rightness of a self-respecting equine. Jim's
a remarkable animal. He's reduced the art
of leaving all the work to his companion to
a nicety. He does none of the work and all

of the giving up, as if he'd been hard at it.

(243)

244 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

Frank is also a remarkable animal in his way.
Contrary to the usual way, he does all the
work and all the blowing. Jim's the only
idler I ever saw who didn't blow.

A kind, bustling little woman, Avith a min-
gled air of happiness and weariness from toil,
made us at home. "Eight children? All
yours, madam?" "O yes, and two more —
two girls married— one in Kentucky and one
in Tennessee." By and by the husband came
in from his work: a hale, hearty, blue-eyed
man, whom the younger children clambered
on, hugged and attacked his pockets. He'd
been by the store, for he drew out a paper of
candy. He is a renter and fairly well-to-do.
Questions are asked, back and forth, and we
find that he was with Ransom in Virginia,
and Avas at the battle of the " crater," Avhich
he called the "blow up." His graphic pri-
vate soldier's account of that dreadful slaugh-
ter, when the Federals hurled a negro division
into an exploded mine and got them slaugh-
tered almost to a man, Avith small loss, com-
paratively, to the Confederates, was enjoyed
more than one usually enjoys war stories.

THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 245

The citizen generally doesn't like war tales,
because he wasn't there; and the old soldier
is generally waiting until he can get his own
"yarn" in.

As we fight our battles o'er;

And battles that we never fought before.

A chill fell upon us when he said he w^as at
Petersburg until nigh the wind up. " My
brother lost his leg at Petersburg, and I
come home."

"Fetched your brother home?" said
Panier.

"JN^o; I never fotch him home; he couldn't
come; but I knowed I was needed at home,
an' I come." The man had clearly been a
good soldier. He was evidently a good man,
intelligent for his grade, although ignorant
and poor. Technically a deserter, the cir-
cumstances excused it, if anything can ex-
cuse forsaking the cause in which one enlists.
N^evertheless, there was a cold lull in the talk;
and, when his name was mentioned next day,
each one said, by one impulse: "I wish Sni-
der hadn't mentioned his leaving."

For the first time, I tried a bed to-night.

246 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

and wished I hadn't. After wrestling with
the native burghers of these solitudes wild
and inaecesible, I resolved hereafter to try a
couch of flax hackles, nettles, chestnut-burrs,
thistles, thorns, anything, in preference to a
native I^ortli Carolina bed of musty straw
and dense population.

Our stopping place was named the Willow
Fountain — a grave mistake, for it suggested
to Blanc to sing; '^ Tit-willow, tit- willow."
A living willow, at the corner of the house,
had been bored in the center and was dis-
charging a three inch stream of cold, pure
water brought down in a log pipe from a
mountain spring a mile above. Aquarius
Africanus couldn't be made to understand
how a living willow could yield living waters.
It stood there to speak for itself, a tree of
fifty feet in height, pouring a continual stream
of water from a spigot in the trunk, three
feet from the ground.

Next morning we crossed the Tuck-ee-see-
gee, and pursued our way doAvn the winding
trough of the Little Tennessee, w^hose narrow
canyon winds between long, low, steep, thick

THE WAGOJS^AUTS ABROAD. 247

wooded hills and high bluff knobs, usually
with a height of from five to eight hundred
feet above the river, w^ith sometimes only
room for the road along the brink of the river.
Often the road climbs the sides of steep hills,
skirting sheer precipices, which rise high
above and look down below the road. Some-
times our way winds up to the very summits
and then winds down again to avoid some
impassable point. This natural Macadam
makes Socoah ashamed of itself. Steep and
rocky on the hillsides, rocky and danger-
ous on the cliff edges, we are travelling-
over the npturned edges of this nphoven
stratification, wdiere the whole foundation of
the earth is on edge. There are loose rocks,
fast rocks, sharp rocks, round rocks, smooth
rocks, rugged and ragged rocks, all along
the riverside road. It is tlie worst road on
this terrestrial ball, and yet a good engineer
and five hnndred dollars a mile would make
it a good road. Generally North Carolina
has the best mountain roads I have ever
travelled, especially npon the old thorongh-
fares of the past, as far west as Mount Ster-

1

248 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

ling; but the impulse didn't last from Ral-
eigh this far west, although this is an old
main road.

The season here is further advanced. We
were told that the Qualla country is two
weeks ahead of the Jonathan's Creek region.
Here elder bushes bear dead ripe berries,
which were only in bloom on the Cataloochee.
The road is lined with two beautiful varieties
of wild pea, one lowly, the other high climb-
ing. Many kinds of purple and yellow flow-
ers bloom by the way. I've practiced my
botany on Blanc and Panier until it's frazelled
to a ravelled edge. Early on our journey
I'd no difficulty in convincing them that a
field of red clover was, really and botanical-
ly a field of white clover, and only red in the
botanically unimportant matter of color;
whereat they marveled greatly, but swal-
lowed the statement with scientific credulity
and unction and made a note of it. JSTow,
names and generalizations drawn from the
inner consciousness won't go doAvn any more.
I've tried, occasionally, admitting that
there are some things I dont know; but

THE wago:n^auts abroad. 249

this has rather weakened than strength-
ened the cause.

The river runs, now smooth, now broad,
shallow and rippling, now boiling, foaming,
and roaring in tumultuous cascades over
among and around great granite boulders,
now plunging down in long rapids. All
along we can see lodged sawlogs among the
rocks, log slides on the opposite bank, and
great piles of logs, got down too late for the
last " tide." The river is mudd}^ with a few
inches of rise and it has recently been over
our road, which is impassable at high water.

At one point we had to fill up a great hole
with rocks before we could go on. Petrea
Africanus carelessly threw a great, sharp-
edged rock and cut off the toe of Blanc's
shoe as clean as if it had been done with a
razor. "That's the narrowest escape from
an un-toe-ward accident I ever saw," said
Panier, unfeelingly. "One foot further, and
'twould have cut off your heel, and you'd
have been ill ' heeled ' for this road. Indeed,
I don't see how you'd have gone toe- ward
home, if it had gone an inch further."

250 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

Beautiful at first, the scenery of this canyon
is a bit monotonous after a few hours' travel,
which is a heavy drain on the canteen. There
are some lovely scenes and views nnexcelled.
Here is a magnificent stretch of tw^o miles of
calm river, between high, Scotch-looking
hills, bounded in the far by lofty moun-
tains which seem to wall in the river and
make it a long, silvery lake, high- walled, syl-
van, and wild. Below us, seen from the crest
of a high hill we've just climbed, lies a
heavily wooded island, blue-hued, soft, misty,
and lovely in the sunlight— almost a repro-
duction of a photograph of Loch Katrine and
Douglass Island, partly the scene of the
"Lady of the Lake." We almost expect, as
we gaze, to see Ellen Douglas's light shallop
fly across the sparkling waters to meet James-
Fitz-James.

Here at this point is a fine contrast. We
are climbing up to a level stretch of road
along a sheer precipice. We are on the
shadowed edge of a hill in a dark forest. The
slope above us is one succession of huge
rounded rocks, piled in vast confusion to-

THE WACIOXAUTS ABROAD. 251

ward the summit, and looking down upon us
with great round, staring, lichen eyes. Tall
trees are growing among the rocks, and here
and there wild liowers of all hues mock at
adornment of the savage wildness of stupen-
dous rocks, as if sylvan elves had decked the
rough head of the mountain in sportive con-
test, as Titania bedecked the head of Bot-
tom. Scant wild vines clamber over great
boulders, and cling to their gray, rugged
sides, as they reach, round, massive, and
confused, toward the summit, as if Titans
had piled here a giant cairn, memorial of
some great victory in the Saturnian wars.
Beneath us a steep precipice falls into a
dense thicket upon the narrow brink of the
river, which rushes roaring on between green
hills.

Beyond us, in the full sunlight, a green
hillside, gently hollowed between two rough
ridges, faintly veiled with a pale, filmy blue
haze, lies serene and placid over against the
dark, rugged, frowning cliff, along whose
steep side we are creeping. The sunny sides
of the opposite hillside are guarded at ridge

252 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

edges by sentinel pines, with gray rocks
showing through.

As we gaze upon the soft stacly of mingled
light, shadow, and color, we w^onder how the
painter dares, with his few meager pigments,
to attempt such infinity of color, hue, shade,
tint, and ever and infinitely varying light ef-
fects. And yet it is the artist, after all — not
reproducing, but at best merely indicating
these efi'ects — who acquaints man with na-
ture, and embodies and intei-prets its subtle
spirit, and brings the soul of man en rapioort
with the soul of nature.

Every minute point upon yonder green
hillside has its own hue and tint, its own ef-
fects of light and shadow; and yet all is di-
vine unity, chiefly one green of many greens,
with here and there gray rock and dusky
trunk.

The dark boughs of the spruces furnish
the groundwork black, the dark sepia, whence
we rise to the warm, bright yellow-green of
the box alders. The slaty ash; the bright,
green hickories; the dull, green cucumber
magnolias; the yellow, light-reflecting chest-

THE WAGONAUTS A13110AD. 253

nuts; the dark-glazed hollies, throwing back
the sunbeams; the linns and the various oaks,
each with its own peculiar tint; yellow masses
of true lovers' knot, w^oven in golden tapes-
tries at the river's edge; the bright scarlet
cones of the flaming sumach; white masses
of prickly ash blossoms, showing beneath
tangled festoons of Avild grape vines which
link tree and ti'ee, give infinite variety where
there is also perfect unity.

In the center of the sunlit, shallow concave
a clustered mass of dark hemlocks gives to
our picture its deepest shades. Upon the
rocky ridge edges, upon both sides, a thin
line of scraggy, yellow-green mountain pines
bounds the picture and forms the frame.

Colors, tints, hues, and shades and shad-
ows are as varied as kinds of trees, sorts of
rocks, position, angle of light-fall — as varied
as there are individual leaves, and as each
separate point of the infinity of points in the
landscape. The common man can enjoy this;
the artist is the man who also knows that he
can interpret something of it all to his fellow-
man.

254: THE WAGONAUTS ABKOAD.

A light breeze sweeps over the scene, and
instantly npturnecl leaves, glistening in the
sunlight, present a new-blended color mass.
The ash and the linn turn up the white under-
leaves, and everywhere some varying shade
of underleaf mingles its hue and tone with
upperleaf sides.

A light cloud sweeps across the sky and
veils the sun, and all is changed again. Ev-
ery point and each leaf, each hue in the warm
sunlight and the misty, sunlit blue, becomes
some new thing in the shadow.

The clouds thicken and the skies darken.
The spruces and pines frown grimly and
deepen almost to blackness, and the hillside
stands lowering over the darkening river.
Thunders roar and reverberate along the nar-
row canyon w^ay; hillside answers hillside
with solemn echoes; lightnings flash and
light up the Titan cairn above us, gleam upon
the long reach of the river below us, and
light up the now froAvning hill beyond the
river, where but now the sunlight sweetly
nestled and played.

The rain begins to fall, and all is changed

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 255

again. The distant mountains fade from the
view; the nigher hills pale into misty indis-
tinctness; and the opposite hill, that was but
now so sweet a picture, stands ghostlike in
the rain and mist beyond the river. The
clouds settle down about us and over us, and
our view is confined to the road, the near
rocks, the giant trees by the roadside, the
toAvering liemlocks beneath us, and the
troubled surface of the darl^, rolling river.

It rains in torrents, just when we are
obliged to walk up a steep hillside. AVe
hang our coats in the wagon. It's easier
drying out woolen shirts than outer clothes,
and there are no colds in this air. Scotch-
ing, pushing, and sliding we go.

With two feeds of corn and oats, we are
independent to-day. We may camp wher-
ever the variable Jim chooses to lie down
and ''knock off" the work that Frank's do-
ing. There are no houses now along our des-
olate road — miles and miles of hill and forest,
cliff and bluff and mountain, unbroken.

About dusk we come upon a desolate. God-
forsaken spot. The very air, miles before we

256 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

reached it, seemed laden with a foul odor of
evil deeds. A suggestion of evil seemed to
lurk in the forest by the roadside, as we drew
nigh. A spirit of evil seemed to look out of
the rained hewn log house and the surround-
ing " clearing," as evil glares forth from the
faces of wicked men.

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,

And said as plain as whisper in the ear:
The house is haunted.

Foul deeds seemed to have stamped them-
selves upon the gables, roof-comb, and chim-
ney corners of the ill-browed ruin. Some
subtle air of mystery, some uncanny sugges-
tion of dark deeds done here within this
lonely cabin, seemed to take shape, and to
glower out of crack, cranny, and chimney,
as if the shackling tenement were filled with
a soul of evil.

There is always some sweet invitation about
a human dwelling place. This remote, lone-
ly ruin bore no longer any semblance of the
human habitation it had once been. It
looked as if some foul fiend — some doing of

THE wago:nauts abroad. 257

some foul deed — violating all the laws and
rights of human hospitality and fellowship,
had instantly blasted it into a seared and
scathed dwelling place for the very genius of
inhumanity.

Panier, when asked to push through the
thick, dank bushes to reconnoitre, drew back
instinctively. A weed-grown hell's two-aci'es
of stony ground, that was once a garden,
corn patch, and orchard, has not yet been al-
together reclaimed by invading forest and
thicket, as if forest and thicket yet drew back
from the accursed spot. A few larkspurs
bloom among the weeds; a sickly marigold
and a peony peep out from amongst tall bull
nettles, rank nightshades, dense, thick-lipped
burdocks, fat docks, and foul-smelling " jini-
sons." The home-loving plantain has de-
parted from the unholy, unhomelike abode of
evil.

The brook that runs out of the thicket
glides along with a scared look and a whis-
pered warning, murmuring without music by
the corner of the house, as if its sweet voice

had been once chilled and its current be-
17

258 THE WAG^OXAUTS ABKOAD.

fouled with some taint that no pure outgush-
ino's of cloud or mist or sweet distillations of
mica sands had ever been able to wash pure
apd sweet again.

A few half-rotten peach trees and a scrag-
gy apple tree stand barren of fruit, blasted
as by some unfertile curse. A rotting rail,
scattered here and there, shows where a fence
has separated a perhaps once happy cottage
home from the wilderness, which now reaches
out its arms to reclaim its own, and yet draws
back and shudders to embrace the accursed
thing. A pile of rocks, yet one upon an-
other, shows where once outhouses have stood
and crumbled with the prevailing curse and
its ruin.

Phoibos drove up, with face ashy and
hands trembling with fear, and the horses
snorted witli terror.

As we approach the house a slimy serpent
glides beneath the floor, and the wind sighs
through the cracks between the logs. The
comb of the cabin roof has rotted away, and
the rest of the room is leaky; the rafters are
damp, discolored, and rotten; the door is

THE WAGONAUTS ABllOAD. 259

gone; the floor has a moist, unwholesome
smell, and it has garnered, here and there,
wind-blown piles of leaves and filth, which
lie rotting in the corners. Horrors! here is
a child's doll; and yonder, in a pile of reek-
ing rubbish, is a woman's shoe.

Panicus was eager to drive on, but the
Wagonauts are nothing if not brave. AVe
determine to lodge in this dreadful house,
though it blast us.

House, "clearing," dying orchard; the
dense, gloomy forest; the matted, tangled,
impenetrable thickets, Avhich reach up to the
very corner of the house; the weed-grown
cleared plat, with its mockery of lingering
flowers, growing there now as if in awful
penance for some unpardonable ancestral sin;
the far-stretching wilderness, miles either
way to human habitation; the deep, narrow
gorge; the sullen, roaring river; the brief
piece of road, coming stealthily out of the
bushes, and hiding at once in the thicket be-
yond; the slimy insects, crawling upon the
moist rocks of the old, half-fallen chimney,
oppress the spirits. One can almost imagine

260 THE WAGOXAUTS ABllOAD.

vague forms flitting in the wood, hovering in
the dusk of the thicket, peering out of the
dark, cavernous recesses whence the timid
brook steals upon its fearful way to the dark
river.

A mountain-locked lake w^hich the river
has formed here lies silent, like a dead sea,
mirroring huge, sombre rocks, beyond which
the river roars down its rocky channel; and
the green, silent, stagnant waters of the lake
seem to share the curse of the lonely house,
as if a wholesome reach of pure water had
been, by one fell curse, dammed here into a
silent cesspool.

I confess that I never felt such sickening
sinking of the heart as when w^e found our-
selves actually in possession, with our bag-
gage moved in. Something seemed to write
in ghostly letters upon the clammy wall:
'' "Who enter here, leave hope behind."

"We soon had a bright fire of clapboards
burning upon the broken hearth. A bed of
glowing coals supplied a supper of broiled
breakfast bacon, corned beef, a pot of smok-
ing coffee, and a dozen roasted eggs. After

THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 261

a mere drop to take off the chill of the even-
ing and to clear away the sense ol' loneliness,
we fell to with keen appetites. I'm snre that
I've never enjoyed a meal more at the Bruns-
wick.

After supper we spread our l)eds down —
two planks for Blanc, three for Panier and
myself — on log ends, off the dam[) floor, with
oilcloths and blankets spread dow^n. The
biscuit box, turned on end, serves for a table.
Cards are drawn out, and we play " hearts "
until we tire of cards, blow out the candles,
and fill pipes and smoke and talk — talk low,
and whisper of things uncanny and of crimes
committed in old houses, of ghosts that walk
in lonesome places and haunt old ruins; tell
ghost stories, until the hair rises on end, and
the chill wind through the open door almost
seems to take ghostly form, and the firelight,
as it flickers, seems to burn bluer and paler
than its wont.

Something chills the fountains of conver-
sation. Talk flags. It is almost midnight.
The flickering light of the dying embers
casts weird shadows upon the wall. The

262 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

novel surroinidings, our wet garments, and a
pipeful more than nsual have banished sleep.
The deep, monotonous roar of the river be-
yond the hill sounds ominously solemn and,
by contrast, briugs to mind the dead-sea lake,
whose stagnant waters wash the foot of this
accursed patch of ground. Fireflies, like
great will-o'-the-wisps, flit uncannily in
swamp and thicket, lighting np the scene
with a ghostly i)hosphorescence. The dis-
tant howling of wolves is borne in by the
wind from the thickets behind us; and it
draws nigher and nigher until it resonnds un-
comfortably close to the open door — that
open door which will never shut again. All
sounds of katydid, screech owl, night hawk,
tree frogs, and the deep bass of the bullfrog
in the dead-sea lake below us fill the forest
with an uncanny clamor. I have never, even
in Southern swamps, heard such fearful chorus
of lonesome, awe-inspiring night sounds of
insect and night bird, deepening the sense of
loneliness and ntter desolation.

Panier made a sickly efl'ort to jest about
the woman's shoe that lay in the rotting dirt

THE WAGON^AUTS ABllOAD. 263

heap ill the corner. Ills words I'ecoiled, and
he glanced learfiilly aronnd with an involnn-
tary shudder of horror and was silent.

]31aiic took the little child's doll as an ob-
ject aljout which to weave a ghost story,
wdiich made Coweriis shudder and draw him-
self into the embers; but Blanc only aroused
a spirit Avhicli would not down. ITe recoiled,
terrified at his own creation, and became
silent. '

Soon we are all silent, with that silence in
which men read one another's thoughts. What
crime has cursed this deserted tenement?
That some blight lies upon it is certain.
Some fatal reputation, stamped upon its feat-
ures, makes it shunned of men and shuddered
at as men steal by — as we shuddered, when
foolhardiness tempted ns to lodge here.

Does that deepening stain on the floor and
the Avail, which seems to grow deeper and
darker, tell the tale? Anger and the sudden
blow? Jealousy and the stealthy axe-stroke
and a crushed skull? A guilty pair and a
victim sunk in the dark river? Guilt, a
sheltered paramour, the stealthy knife, the

264 THE WAGOXAUTS ABllOAD.

snake-like gliding toward a darkling couch —
a wife blood-boltered and sweltering? There
is something.

It is in the air; the walls reek with it; the
river's roar shouts it aloud. The wind whis-
pers it with a dying sigh through the pines.
The night bird shrieks it out. The brook
murmurs it. The screech owl laughs it
forth and revels in it. The unwholesome
wings of the uncanny bat whisper it as they
glide in and out by the open door in the dim
firelight.

The firelight is but a faint flickering of
dying embers, deepening the shadows in the
corners and in the ragged roof, where no
friendly star peeps in from on high. AVe can
hear one another's breathings and heart beats.

Something comes gliding in at the open
door — something vague, mysteriously taking
shape, seeming to diff'use itself and then fad-
ing out by all the cracks and crannies of the
old cabin. Again it appears, lingers, em-
bodies itself for a moment, and again fades
into thin air and vanishes.

Three pistols click and the harsh noise

THE WAGON^AUTS ABROAD. 265

seems, to our quick senses, to fill all tlie wild
gorge with useless noise. Three voices whis-
per as one: " AV^eapons are useless here." It
was as a profanation, and yet it was only an
instinctive clutchinof at soniethinir.

Whispei-ing together, chilled, and terror-
stricken, we agree to speak to it if it return;
and the shuddering Panier, the bravest of
oui* party, is appointed to the task.

Again it conies, again takes shape — a
vague, misty something — '' shape tliat shape
has uone " — transparent, but an embodied
something, vaguely defined, but defined — a
half human shape, with large, flowing drap-
ery, dimly outlined upon the black back-
ground of darkness, by the faint flicker of
lingering sparks in the fireplace of the huge

chimney.

Fear, abject fear — which we do not even
conceal from one another — has so keenly shar-
pened our senses that all sounds, the roar of
the river, the dismal sighing of the wind, the
howl of the wolf, the cries of night birds, the
hoot of the great owl, the screech owl's el-
dritch laugh — all the solemn, lonely sounds

266 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

of night and solitude — seem to resound, re-
doubled, one deep, awful chorus of warning
or of mockery.

'' AYhat do you seek here? " feebly ^Yhispers
Panier, our chosen spokesman.

Instantly a commanding and a terrible fig-
ure defined itself in the center of the room,
reached out a long, bony, white-clad arm and
a skeleton, skinny finger; and a voice as
sepulchral and deep as if it had come from
the earth's profoundest bowels said: ''I am
thy Governor's ghost. I am the spirit of the
Governor of ^orth Carolina. Gentlemen,
it's a long time betw^een drinks."

^Yhen I awakened at dawn out of a troubled
sleep, Panier said: '' Kamp, what the devil
was the matter with you last night? Blanc
and I had got up to tap the canteen — so wet
and chilly we couldn't sleep. While v>'e were
drinking you fell into the dreadful lest night-
mare I ever saw. We coiddn't rouse you,
and finally we gave you a drink and turned
you over to dream it out."

The unmitio-ated liar! The liars! When

CI

they both know as well as I do that we all

THE WAaONUATS ABKOAD. 267

tliree saw the ghost of the Governor of North
Carolina. It has cured nie of lodging in old
ruined cabins hereafter. Wise men only
need to leai'n once.

Of our journey to Maryville I will speak
in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VIII.

w

The way was long, the night was cold,
The steeds they were infirm and old.

(Scott.)

'E left the haunted house, glad that it
\][ didn't rain during the night, pleased
that the Governor of ^N'orth Carolina paid his
respects before we left the State, and glad to
o-et away from a ruin which was only less
lonely, forbidding, and desolate in the full
morning light than by dusklight. The sign-
board tells us that it's six miles to Eocky
Point. They don't spell well here, and sign-
board nomenclature w^ould unsettle the old
atlases; but they do make signs well in this
country. Except at crossroads and forks of
the road, wdiere they're especially needed,
the roads are well supplied with signboards.
Throughout the Indian country we found the
mileposts entirely primitive — an arrow point-
ing the way, with the number of miles notched

on the post.
(268)

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 269

At Rocky Point, where a stony cape nar-
rowed the river, the late rise had lodged a
dozen sawlogs in the road, where our way
jutted against impassable stones on the far
side of a deep creek with an ugly ford. Cross-
ing to where we could leap ashore, we had to
spend two hours log rolling. I revived my
knowledge of skids, handspikes, ''pea,"
"cut," and "cross-lift;" but I had to con-
fess that Loginus Africanus had more of
what is called "judgment" than any of us.
Improvising skids and cutting handspikes,
we toiled and rolled there in the red-hot sun
for almost two hours, until we'd cleared a
road by which Ave could barely pass. Two
miles on we met a road-working party, to
whom we complained that they hadn't cleared
out the obstructions. They looked surprised,
and told us they'd been over that part of the
road and cut all the overhanging bushes,
which was all the law required. It seemed
to them excessively funny that they should
be expected to move sawlogs, when the next
rise would clear them out. We "jawed" at
them and they "jawed " back good-natured-

270 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROxVD.

ly, and theirs was, truly, the best-humored
side of the argument.

As we reach the crest of a long hill, we see
Panier start back with horror depicted npon
his chissic features. Coming up, we see a
big rough mountaineer with a hangdog look
and a general air of " pure cussedness,"
hohling a long rifle at a recover. When
Panier first saw him, he'd a dead bead on him,
and he thought his days were numbered; bnt
the fellow was only shooting at a mark set up
by the side of the road. " I hain't a gwyne
to be a hurtin' uv you-nns," he said. If he
had had no gun, we would have advised him
to be careful that v,e didn't hnrt him for
shooting near to a public highway contrary
to law, but w^e forebore.

This fellow was a fine specimen of the
lazy, trifling, do-notbing fellow, that marries
a good mountain girl, who must marry some-
body— or ought to — and then loafs and loung-
es, while she toils and slaves and bears him
a honseful of children and is his squaw. How
they live. He that feedeth the raven— yea,
providently caters for the sparrow — only

THE WAGONAUT8 ABROAD. 271

knows. Just boyoiul him, we come to a
cabin, upon a rocky knoll, in a God-forsaken
spot, miles from any neighl^or habitation,
with a bit of garden patch, a few peach
trees and cultivable ground nowhere else
thereabout.

"Kocky Point, ma'am?" w^e asked of a
pale, thin, but good-looking woman who stood
in the doorway nursing a sickly child, with
two tow-heads clinging to her apron strings.
She wore an air of utter weariness and
loneliness, but of meek patience, cow-like
rather than human — a woman to be kicked
and cuffed and starved, to toil and bear
children and go on to the end, because she
is of too tough fibre to die, and yet doesn't
know what on earth she lives for. Such
women, liere at least, live to an old age, dry
up and die, after years of toil, without know^-
ing that life has imposed upon them more
than their share of its burdens.

" Rocky Point, ma'am ? "

" Hit air, stranger, an' a rocky p'int hit be,
shore enough."

^^ Spring, ma'am, anywhere hereabout?

«j ??

272 THE WAGOXAUTS ABBOAD.

"!N^o, we hain't got any water hyar."

"Lonesome place, ma'am."

"Hit air indeed, stranger; hit's the lone-
somest place as ever I lived."

This she said as if the lazy lout wiio was
shooting at the mark there in the "holler"
didn't relieve it much of loneliness. Poor
devil ! she has chosen her lot — to go from
cabin to cabin, trudging on foot, moving on,
moving on, half starved, all the time toiling,
while her lazy husband takes his ease and
plays lord and master, until he commits
some crime and is gaoled, or gets into some
drunken brawl and is killed, and then she
weeps and believes she is sorry and makes a
better living for her children than he ever
made for her.

Three miles now to the summit of Great
Smoky — a dreadful road, we've been told.
The devil was ne'er so black as he's painted.
The road is better than the Socoah road, and
far better than the Little Tennessee road, and
it isn't a " daisy " either. We have to walk,
and it rains; but w^e toil up, doing the Cale-
donian— scotching — pushing, slipping, and

THE WAGON AUTS ABROAD. 273

sliding. Some luxurious people may think
that this isn't fun, diversion, enjoyment, but
it is.

Coming to a rustic bridge at the foot of a
beautiful fall, we defer to a particularly
dark cloud, stop and take to the wagon for
shelter. A clear, lovely stream here leaps
down, by three successive falls, into three
successive solid rock basins, landing in a
pool of granite, washed clean of sand and
gravel, lying, about forty feet in circumfer-
ence between the bridge and the foot of the
cascade. Over the last ledge it falls,

Descending, disembodied and diffused,
O'er the smooth surface of an ample crag,
Lofty and steep and naked as a tower,

Into its broad, clear pool, coming down the
the gently inclined face of the smooth, moss-
carpeted granite, in a beautiful thin sheet of
bubbling water, fifteen feet in width, flanked
at either side by foamy, broken, tumultuous
streams of greater depth, roaring, cascade-
iform, down broken ledges. The clear sheet
of water, the smooth ledge, moss-carpeted

under the water, the flanking falls ^\e or

18

214: THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

six feet in width on either side, with their
two cascades in their hist leap into the pool,
formed falls of great beauty.

AVhen the rain ceased, we enjoyed a deli-
cious bath, plunging into the clear, cold ba-
sin, leaning reclined against and under the
descending sheet of clear water, lying in the
troughs of the cascades at the sides and com-
ing out reinvigorated for further climbing.

As w^e halted in the Great Smoky Gap,
three miles from Rocky Point, and upon the
divide between Tennessee and IS^orth Caro-
lina, the sun was shining brightly. At this
high point the valley vievvs in Tennessee, to
the Kentucky line, and tlie mountain views,
down to the Georgia and Soutli Carolina
lines in Xorth Carolina, are fine and far ex-
tended.

To our right towers the regal sunlit head
of the Quoi-Ahna-toosa, named from '' quoi-
ahna," a duck, and '' catoosa," a moun-
tain, meaning the "duck-mountain," being
covered on its summit with lakes, where
ducks pause in their migi-atory flight.
Clingman, an old IN'orth Carolina politician.

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 275

and one Buckley have had quite a quarrel
about the Quoi-Ahna-Catoosa. Clingnian,
when one of the Kegents of the Smithsonian
Institution, had it named ''Clingman's
Dome;" while Buckley has had it named for
him on some maps. IMapwise it appears
both ways. It is a magnificent mountain,
perhaps the highest peak east of the Missis-
sippi. Too weighty for the shoulders of either
Bucklev or Clin^unan, it should be left alone
to bear its own beautiful Indian name.

At this point the Wagonauts barely escaped
an insurrection. Blanc drew out his watch
and called Panier's attention to the fact that
it was 10 o'clock.

"And in an hour it will be 11; and
thereby hangs a tale; and thus we ripe and
ripe and rot and rot," replied the mixtly
Shaksperian Panier.

"A truce to frivolity," replied Blanc. "I
propose that we drink to the health of Quoi-
Ahna-Catoosa and destruction to all tyrants
and an end to this six bells business."
Blanc looked really heroic as he concluded
his Philii)pic, and added: " Panier, we've been

276 THE AVAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

cheated all the way from Kiioxville to this
point. We've been in the eastern division,
and six bells comes at 10 o'clock by onr
time. We've been deceived — lost a good
hour's drinking every day, cheated of our
fair p)-oportion of drinking time by this dis-
sembling despot, whom we've too, far too,
long endured. 'No halfway measures with
tyrants. Down with six bells."

Panier is a very bold man; but he's very
conservative; law, custom, what's "by ages
of possession consecrate " he dares not
overturn. I saw from the water in Panier's
e3^e that a half decent excuse would save
him.

"Gentlemen," I said, "it's true that I've
saved you from yourselves. Invoking es-
tablished usage, it was not my fault if you
lost an hour by failing to set your watches
up as you came eastward. ]S[ow, I've pre-
pared a little surprise. I've kept hid at the
bottom of the mess chest four bottles of real
Pomery sec. and no mistake, to be tapped at
our last mountain station, homeward bound.
Here's the place; there's the wine; there's

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 277

the spring; and damme if the man who
doesn't renew his alliance to the six bells
rnle, shall have a drop, were he adessiccated
flea, roasting npon Bardolph's nose."

Panier at once took the oath, and Blanc
reluctantly followed. In five minntes the
Pomery sec. was cooling in a cold mountain-
top spring, a rousing fire was burning, the
horses were turned loose to graze, and the
Wagonauts wave resting on the grass, which
the rains below had not reached.

Blanc softened as the bubbles and beads
of growing coolness gathered upon the
graceful taper necks of the champagne bot-
tles and the lizards and frogs crawled lov-
ingly over the glass, wishing they could get
in; and he proposed that we should memori-
alize the Congress of the United States to
enact the six bells rule into a law. Exactly
at six bells — old time — the canteen was
brought out .and was tapped by way of prim-
ing.

When the sun indicated high noon, Epicu-
rus spread the tablecloth and laid thereon
two broiled spring chickens, sundry slices of

278 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

venison, bought a store, bacon, broiled on the
coals, roasted roasting ears, roasted Irish
potatoes of the fine mountain kind, beaten
biscuits, a pat of butter, a bottle of the finest
olives, a bunch of tender lettuce, which has
been crisping in the spring, a bunch of water
cress, gathered in the valley below, a dozen
stuffed hard-boiled eggs, olives stuffed with
anchovies, English juckled walnuts, ham
sandwiches, a pot of smoking coffee, and four
champagne glasses — I had provided the extra
one for the absent Brutus — and our spread
was ready.

Out of respect for its long and faithful
service, the canteen was again tapped, and
the hungry Wagonauts fell to with a zest and
devoured the edibles with a keen appetite.
We had prepared this feast for the gods by
judicious purchases along the road; but the
champagne was my own provision and a
surprise.

We lay on the grass, Roman fashion, " like
gods reclined, careless of mankind," making
believe that it was Olympus, and we the im-
mortals, regaling ourselves with ambrosia.

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 279

with nectar a-cooling. AVheii '^ not the half
of our heavy task was done," Ganymede was
directed to broach a l^ottle of champagne
from the cooler. As the sparkling nectar
bubbled and flashed in the taper glasses, " The
Wagonauts" was proposed and di'unk, and
then the absent Brutus, and then the Quoi-
x\hna-Catoosa, to whose sun-crowned head
we tipped our glasses. Then Panier pro-
posed Jove; and Blanc proposed Ganymede,
Jove's cup-bearer, to which our ebony cup-
bearer responded with a grin, as Panier
handed him the extra glass.

IS^ever was a meal more delicious or more
enjoyed than that regal spread there upon
the cool mountain top, Avhere the senses were
regaled with the fragrance of wild grape
blossoms and of the moist ferns, Avhere the
tinkling rill made music lit to accompany a
feast of the gods, and the rambling breezes
played ^olian strains there under the grate-
ful shadows of spruce and birch.

When all were full, and the last walnut
was gone, and the last olive had disappeared,
and the last drop of sparkling wine was

280 THE WAGO^^AUTS ABROAD.

drained from the goblet, I said : " Gentlemen,
I've another little surprise — a pony of eau
de vie, a j^ousse cafe for the wind-up." Blanc
and Panier hugged me, and the rosy cognac
was drunk in a health " to the best of cater-
ers, A. T. Eamp," proposed by Blanc, who,
with tears in's eyes, distraction in's visage,
humbly apologized for his meditated revolt
aofainst the six bells rule.

" One more surprise, gentlemen : here are
the best of the Henry Clay Perfecto cigars
from the Hermitage Club. Let's burn a
sweet savor of incense to the spirit of the
mountain top." The unimpressible Panier
here hugged me, as he lit a fragrant Havana.

At this point the irrepressible and insatia-
ble Panier drew from his pocket a poem. Al-
cibiades anxiously said he thought we'd
^'better be gittin' along; mought meet some
Injuns in the dark; " but there was no escape.
Panier read the following verses :

The Disturbed Mountains.
Like mighty monsters in a vasty lair,

Aroused to make a fierce protest,
By venturous steps of aliens who dare

With heedless haste disturb their rest.

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 281

The moTintains frowned at the invading tread

Of the Wagonauts, so fresh and free,
Nor less resentful seemed to see them led

By A. T. Kamp, with schnicker schnee.

And when bold Blanc, athirst for Indian gore,

With eyes aflame and locks of tire,
Scalped one poor trembling brave, and cried for more,

They shook their rugged sides with ire.

But Panier, with a gentler art instead,

By song the mountains did beguile.
Until athwart their frowsy faces sj^read

A sun-fetched amplitude of smile.

And when the Brutus read Sliakspearean verse,

In voice so tragical and deep,
The wondering monsters were disarmed of fears,

And soon were lulled again to sleep.

When he had finished, he waked np Blanc,
myself, and Alcibiades, and we toned np onr
failing systems with a ^^pony," lit a fresh ci-
gar, and prepared for the road.

We have been told that the descent to the
Harding farm is seven miles of good road.
The road is good, bnt the descent seemed to
ns chiefly ascent. Blanc said that we de-
scended by ascent in order to make a de(s)cent

282 THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD.

entry into the valley of the Tennessee. The
good hnmor spread over the Wagonant party
by the hate dinner enabled this to pass with-
out comment.

At last we came to a tollgate. Tennessee
seems to have a monopoly of tollgates upon
pikes that exist in the imagination. As it is
on the Kentucky border, all turnpikes end at
the State line. A traveller by stage from
IS^ashville to Hopkinsville, Ky., one night
was suddenly jolted up, bump against the
forward part of the coach, as if the world had
come to an end. " What the h — ll's the mat-
ter, driver?" he shouted.

" ^othin' at all, sii"," replied the driver;
^'jist struck Ivaintucky."

A surly young man refused to open the
gate until we had paid toll. It Avas not wise
to resist, but we told him that we could no
more trust him to open the gate than he
could trust us to pay toll. After some alter-
cation, he opened the gate, and we paid the
toll. Although the charter, if any ever ex-
isted, had l)een long forfeited, and toll could
not be legally collected, the road was good

J

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 283

and a public convenience, for which we were
willing to pay.

We have now passed through a region of
North Carolina unknown to any of our party.
I have here seen the mountaineer substan-
tially as I have known him in my youth, when
I hunted, fished, danced on puncheon lloors,
played the fiddle, and enjoyed summer jaunts
with him farther to the northeast. In tlie
region that we have passed through he is un-
changed by communications and travel.
Closer connections have wrou^'ht <2:reat
changes further east; l)ut these have left this
region beyond the pale of ti'avel. The coun-
try is far moi'c secluded than in earlier days,
when great lines of connnuni cation ran
through this region. Travel has been divert-
ed to rail lines. We did uot meet or j^ass a
single vehicle on the Cataloochee road, by
Mount Sterling, on the Socoah road, or on
the road we are now traveling; and yet these
were in the past thoroughfares. Except a
few late-come capitalists and prospectors, no
strangers have entered here; and the natives,
when they do go out, depart by other lines,

284 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

which are now more convenient. The only
actual settlement hereabout was that of a
Scotch colony of lumber speculators, and
they have failed and gone.

I beg pardon for again referring to dialect.
For the chief writer of mountain dialect sto-
ries I have a profound respect — for her indus-
try, for her real genius, for works entertain-
ing and worthy in themselves apart from
their errors, for her magnificent descriptive
powers, although a bit overworked. She sel-
dom uses words not sometimes spoken by
the mountain people; but it would take the
peculiarities of speech of a thousand to make
one character, speaking as her characters do
speak. I have never heard the word " hants,"
or "haunts," in the mountains; although I
have heard "hants" among the ignorant
people, chiefly the negroes of the lowlands.

The language of these people is as easily
understood as that of educated people, and is
only singular and outre when written. Writ-
ten as it is, it would look more unfamiliar
than it ever sounds. Besides, she writes
most uncolloquial speech; and this is her

THE WAGOXAUTS ABKOAD. 285

chief fault. Her characters do not speak,
even in their own jargon, as men and women
talk. Antique Avords, although plentiful, do
not form the woof and warp of tiie daily
speech of these people. If it were collo-
quial, her speech would not be their language.
This is to violate the truth of fiction; and
fiction has its own laws, which will not be
violated with impunity.

There is no dialect in this country, unless
it be the speech of the French Creoles and
of the South Carolina negroes, which is really
an unintelligible African jargon. Riley's
verses in the speech of the ignorant, the
mountain dialect stories, and most of that
sort of literature, including the African jar-
gon tales, is mere pestilential cacography.
Of all things in literature this is the least
worthy. Thackeray's ^'Yellow Plush Pa-
pers " are an instance of a great writer de-
grading his talents to mere cacography. Both
dialect and cacography touch, at their best,
merely the outre, the occasional, the transient,
and the accidental; where genius seeks the
genuine, the true, the lasting, the granite bed-

286 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

rock lines in humanity, which alone can live
and be true for all time — to-morrow as to-
day, to-day as yesterday. That the lasting-
may well be fringed and trimmed and deco-
rated with the accidental is true. This the
chief writer of mountain stories has done to
some extent; but with too much of the outre
and accidental, and too little of the permanent
and lasting — too much trimming and too lit-
tle fabric.

This sort of literature has been attractive
to IN^orthern readers because it sketches the
outre and touches the phases of Southern
life about which they are ignorant and of
which they seek information; but it cannot
form the basis of a lasting literature — not
Southern — but depicting Southern life and
society as it is and as it was. The coming
literature — not of but from the South — de-
scriptive of Southern phases of character,
will deal with the broad and eternal lines of
social life and character, using the outre and
the accidental sparingly, as mere trimmings,
local shadings and tinting, laid in upon the
broad, the universal, and the permanent.

THE AYAaONAUTS ABROAD. 287

We are only halfway down tlie Tennessee
side of the Great Smoky when night be<^*'ins
to fall. If we had feed, we could eani[) any-
where; but Jim must bu fud to make Mary-
ville to-moiTow. Panier and I walk; Blanc
says he scotched, but we remember him as
cumbering the wagon. By the time night
closed in as black as Erebus, with scarce a
star, we were in despair. The road led along
deep abysses, and over dangerous hills, and
down steep inclines. The sure hand of Lo-
renzo de Medici is oui- sole reliance for seeinir
to-morrow's sun. Lighting a farthing dip,
left from our haunted house sojourn, I walked
in the center of the road and Lorenzo followed,
as well as he could, my guidance. Fortunate-
ly, the road was good. My self-sacrifice was
loudly api)lauded; but I really devoted Pa-
nier and Blanc to the yawning gulfs on either
hand.

About 9 o'clock we reached the Hard-
ing farm, and in the dark i)assed the road
which led to the house of Mr. Howard, the
present owner. As we drove on down the
valley, what I took to be a low-flying meteor

288 THE AVAGOXAUTS ABllOAD.

whizzed along the ground, on the riverside;
and then another and another. " What are
they doing with rockets here? " asked Bhinc.

'^ Our coming has been announced; I hope
I shall not have to speak to-night in answer
to a welcoming address, " said Panier.

We halted and hailed a light which shone
through the vast river bottom cornfield. We
might as well have bayed the moon, for the
light was five miles away, so deceptive is
eyesight in the night. Our road leads to a
gate, which enters a cornfield. We must
have missed our way. I blame my e^^esight,
and I seldom blame myself for any mishap.
At least the road mav lead to a house. After
much winding the road comes to an end, and
I get out and light a candle. Searching for
the road, I fall into a deep ditch and return
to find Blanc and Panier discussing the situ-
ation over the canteen. At last I find the
road, and we make another mile of intermi-
nable cornfield by what turned out next day
to be a neighborhood road, ^ow we're out
in the corn again, trampling people's bread-
stuffs and miring in the soft tilth, until

THE WAUOJSAUTS ABROAD. 289

wagon, Wagonaiits, horses, and Jehu land
in a ditch. We prize out, and halt be-
wildered.

^'AVe'U sleep here in the wagon," said
Bhinc. To this Panier agrees and Cerbe-
rus applauds. My authority as flag-officer
is waning, but 1 said: '^ Gentlemen, we will
not sleep here." This brings revolt to a
head, and 1 proceed to unfold. " Gentlemen,
AVagonauts, our reputation will stand any
strain; but if the Ivnoxville editors hear, as
they will, of our being found here at daylight,
asleep in a gentleman's cornfield, with a wag-
on, a driver, and two kegs (chiefly filled with
emptiness) and a dry canteen, they Avill in-
dite sucli an article as will ruin our reputa-
tions; and no man, and what's more no w^om-
an, will ever believe that w^e weren't howling
drunk, when we got into that scrape,

Drimker'n liootin' biled owls,
Or any other wild fowls.

" There's much truth in that," said Panier.
"I hadn't thought of that," said Blanc.
'' Dat's so," remarked the sententious Bac-
chus Africanus.

19

290 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

"If Blanc's red nose is found where it is
usually anchored, near the bunghole, who
can receive it other?" I said.

"Who can receive it other?" echoed
Panier.

"Who can receive it other?" echoed
Blanc.

"Who'll take 'nother?" said Bacchus.

We got out, lifted the w^agon around, and
drove back toward a house where we saw a
light. After two miles of travel it was no
nearer than when we started. It was really
^ve miles away across the river; but we did
finally come to a light oif the road; and,
leaving the team, Panier and I w-ent to ask
for lodgings. A handsome, robust, neatly
dressed w^oman came to the door, surrounded
by a bevy of lovely daughters. Her husband
wasn't at home, and they didn't take in
strangers. We told her who we were and
what was our unfortunate plight, out in the
night, far from any house, with worn-out team
and a broken axle — an invention of Panier's.
Still: "I'm very sorry," A thought struck
me. "Madam, have you any water?" As

THE wago:n^auts abroad. 291

she turned, I said : " Paiiier, we must show
ourselves and trust to her being able to see
through our rough attire that we're gentlemen
in dis<>uise." We entered the house and the
lady was able to know gentlemen disguised.
"I'd be sorry to turn gentlemen away at this
time of night," she said.

"Shall I have our team driven up to the
front, madam," J said, taking it for granted.

" Yes, right there by the gate; the stable
is out there; my little boy will show you the
way."

In an hour we had surrounded a square
meal from our own stores, and were smoking
our pipes and laughing at wanton Hxte cheat-
ed, and congratulating our own good luck.

The lady told us that the rockets we had
seen were i^reconcerted signals, arranged
between a party of tourists on the mountain
top and a house across the river.

And now, last scene of all in this eventful
history: after a delicious breakfast with our
fair hostess, who dwells at Mary ville in the
winter foi* the education of her children, and
lives here in the summer and raises flow-

292 THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD.

ers and has everything neat and comfortable
about her, we are off for the capital of Blount
Count}^ It wouldn't have been so bad after
all if we had slept in the cornfield; for w^e
were told that the main road here was the
neighborhood road which led through the
cornfield. We can take a nearer road across
Chilhowie range; but we've had enough of
Jim in conjunction with mountain roads.
We enter the cornfield and pass through
many a gate and along the foot of Chilhowie,
about twenty miles, to where we pass around
the end of the mountain, and across the di-
vide to Maryville. Across the river, as we
go, we can see the site of the old Indian
settlement, and later paleface fort of Telas-
see, where was once a large village. The
views on the Little Tennessee along here
should attract artists from all quarters. I
have seen nothing finer or more attractive to
the landscape artist than this long, winding
trough of the Tennessee and its broad fertile
bottoms and vast fields of waving corn, over-
shadowed by high hills, steep mountains,
huge clifi's, and wooded summitSo

THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD. 293

Out of the moiuitainsj over the foothills of
the long sandstone Chilhowic mountain
range; and, leaving it in onr rear, we stop
for lunch and to feed. A grey-eyed mountain
damsel — robust, barefooted, good-looking,
with an evident policy of her own — comes
down to the cool spring and sweet si)ring
house, well stored with milk and butter, to
be sold to neighboring watering places; and
gives us, for a very modest compensation,
fresh, cool buttermilk, delicious sweet milk,
and fragrant butter otf the clover fields, and
made by her OAvn fair hands. She talks pleas-
antly the while, and with good sense and
good English, although she's barefooted.
Her father tells ns that he's never been ten
miles aAvay, although he is a very intelligent
man and talks well. He also plays the fiddle ,
and we have ^^iackback Davy," ^' Okl Zip
Coon," " Natchez under the Hill," and " Billy
in the Lowgrounds." This old-fashioned
music moves Panier's not too robust legs to
the mazes of the dance.

Nae cotillons brent new frae France,

But hornpipes, jigs, strathpeys, an' reels

Pit life an' mettle in his heels.

294 THE wago:n^auts abroad.

He tries ^'Old Granny" and ^^ Forked Deer; "
bnt " Rickett's Hornpipe " brings out all the
grace and mettle in Panier. I stood in
amazement, wondering at this Terpsichorean
feat, and Blanc lectured him on the undigni-
ty of the display there in the " big road."
Panier said that the Scriptures recorded that
the rams danced and skipped, and lambs
hopped, and the hills danced their legs off
when the old " chunes " of Zion were played,
and he meant to knock it out once more if it
blistered his heel.

Blanc had another narrow escape from
death here, trying to make what he called a
mint julep. He offered the concoction to me,
but I suspected treason and poison, and de-
clined. He had violated all julep rules, mash-
ing the leaves up in a cup, wheu it's the odor
and flavor of the mint, and not the taste, that
is wanted and prescribed. I recognized the
"yerb" at once as a deadly poison.

" Why, it smells like mint," said he.

"O, yes," said I; ^^you have found a leaf
by accident, but most of the plants you've
got there are poisonous weeds." I lectured

THE AVAG0:N^AUTS ABliOAD. 295

him in good botany, threw out the poison-
ous ^' smash/' and found him a bunch of real
mint.

Our road now lies over long, steep hills,
until we reach a beautiful, fertile, but ill-
watered country, ten miles from Mary vi lie,
with the blue ridge of Chilhowie behind us,
stretching, a long sandstone ridge, from near
Sevierville southwesterly to the Little Ten-
nessee; and farther, southeastward, tower the
far, tall blue peaks of the Great Smoky, in
Sevier and Cocke Counties, Tenn.

We are making about a half mile an hour,
and are six miles from Maryville, when Jim
comes to a dead halt. An old farmer was in-
duced by Panier's persuasive tongue to sell
us a feed of corn and oats. Stopping in a
long lane, we fed, built a fire by the roadside,
and soon had a supper fit for a king, with a
pot of fine black coff*ee, displaying the exqui-
site touch of Panier in its delicate aroma.
I've seldom enjoyed a meal more than that
roadside supper. A smoke in the fence cor-
ner, and an hour's sleep upon a divan formed
of the wa»-on cushions, and we are oft' for

296 THE WAGONAUTS ABROAD.

Maryville, which we reach about 12 o'clock,
finding everybody in bed.

Here I wish to lodge the only comphiint I
have had to make of Blanc and Panier as
traveling companions. I enlivened the dark
road Avith song — operatic gems, ballads, and
sentimental verse. My companions have no
ear for music. They know not the soothing
influences of melody. They've no under-
standing of the concords of sweet sounds.
Their deafness did'nt disturb me in the least.
I sang on. I liked it.

The hotel was full; but we secured the
soft side of a floor, and, with our blankets,
enjoyed a good night's rest, and got up early
to view the ancient and picturesque capital
of Blount. Maryville is the old seat of a
New School Presbyterian Theological Semi-
nary, whence emanated once, from one of its
professors, the most remarkable epic poem
that was ever composed — a poem now forgot,
but deserving revival and such study as Ho-
mer has received. I read it in my early days,
when my father was a minister of the Old
School Church, and procured and enjoyed it

THE WAGOXAUTS ABROAD. 297

as about the kind of doggerel a I^ew School
man would write. Tt is one of the curiosi-
ties of literature which deserves embalming.
There is a tradition that Payne composed his
"Home, Sweet Home" while he was Indian
Agent out in this country. That lie was
such agent is true, but the rest of the tradi-
tion is unfounded.

Distrustful of Jim, we bade Saltus Afri-
canus an affectionate good-bye, and left him
to wrestle with James and find his way to
Knoxville, while we boarded the train. But
we were not quite quits with Jim and Jehu.
As the train passed by a steep hill we saw
Jim stalled fast upon the hillside, and Scipio
lashing his side and filling the air with blue
blazes of profane speech.

AVith a very bad horse we have made two
hundred and fifty miles of rough mountain
road — from Knoxville to Sevierville, and
thence around through Qualla, and by the
valley of the Little Tennessee, to Maryville
and back to Knoxville — a wide circuit.

I humbly apologize to the stricter sort for
mention of the keg, Avliich has been really

298 THE wago:nauts abroad.

more frequent than its use. Why the con-
vivial has a place in all literature — song, bal-
lad, epic, and romance — I know not; but it
has, and I'm not one to fly in the face of es-
tablished usage. The keg and the canteen
were along for use; but their chiefest use
has been to point a moral and adorn a tale,
with Blanc and Panier as horrible examples.

The good things that have happened I
hope I have impartially distributed to Blanc
and Panier, only giving myself the worst
parts played. I believe that I have not ad-
mitted that there is anything I don't know.
If I have, I apologize for that.

Havinof neither hotel nor rail nor river
tourists' lines to advertise, I can conscien-
tiously commend the Bald and Poan mount-
ain regions, the wild, picturesque Qualla
country, the rugged peaks of the Quoi-Ahna-
Catoosa, and the lovely valleys of the l^ante-
hala, the Cataloochee, and the Ocona-Luftee
to all tourists of America. To these may be
added the equally wild and rugged Asheville
country and its beautiful centre city of grow-=
ing refinement, elegance, and culture, now

THE WAOONAUTS ABROAD.

299

accessible by rail. In all these regions there
is the wildest, noblest, and most i)ictui"esque
mountain scenery to be found in America
this side the Eocky Mountains. I cannot
conscientiously advise two kegs; but if I
were the tourist, I would not go unprovided
with something for the stomach's sake. It's
dangerous.

As we entered Knoxville, Achilles drove
up to the depot and saluted, borne upon the
wings of the wind. In fact, our train had
been delayed four hours on the way. An-
other agonizing parting, and we board the
train for ]S^ashville; and the Wagonautic tour
of Kamp, Blanc, Panier, and the canteen and
two kegs draws to a close, and adjourns sine
die.

EEEATUM.

The picture of the "moonshiner," Jim, referred to

on page 63, was lost too late to supply, and a portrait

of another moonshiner, noted in federal courts, is

substituted.
(300)

4\\